![]() Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), explains to Lena that her now-comatose husband is dying. The two soon find themselves at a secure facility where a psychologist, Dr. It becomes clear, however, that he is severely ill. She asks him questions about what happened. His military unit had been among the first expeditions into the Shimmer, but he has no memory of the mission at all. Kane has indeed come home, but he is scarcely a shell of his former self. (In a touch that approximates the definition of “too on the nose,” the musical accompaniment is Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “ Helplessly Hoping,” and Lena sees him walking up the stairs to the bedroom precisely as the song reaches the line “Stand by the stairway, you’ll see something … ”) Is he a ghost? Has she lost her mind? ![]() But one weekend, as she weeps inconsolably, he reappears mysteriously. Lena’s husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac) is a soldier, and he has been long missing and presumed dead. He wants to know about her experience in the Shimmer, also known as “Area X.” How long was she in there, what did she eat, what happened to the other members of her expedition? I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.įlash backward in time. Jason Reynolds never fails to impress.The movie opens with a biologist, Lena (Natalie Portman), being questioned by a man in a hazmat suit. Patina recognizes, and it celebrates.Ĭompassionate and wonderful. Women who, far too often, go uncelebrated and unrecognized. Practical women who find themselves carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. They are our mothers and our sisters our partners and our friends. Ultimately what makes this story so compelling is that we’ve all had a Patina (or multiple Patinas) in our lives. (The novel’s main conflict has to do with Patina’s reluctance to share her responsibilities and accept help from other people… while at the same time training for a relay race, which is all about relying and trusting your fellow runners.) It’s a symbolism that in Reynolds’ clever and poetic hands goes the distance. This is only the second entry in this series, but it’s clear that one of the central themes in the Track books is about recognizing and dealing with trauma, using the act of running as a metaphor (the act of which, as Reynolds has previously stated, is your body dealing with physical trauma). Leave everything, all the hurting stuff, the unregular stuff that seemed so regular to me, in the dust. A way to… I guess, sometimes even shut myself up. And so, like Castle Crenshaw before her, she uses running as an outlet and escape. It’s a weight that is slowly but surely suffocating our protagonist. Unable to suitably take care of her daughters, the girl’s mother arranges for them to move in with her doting brother-in-law and his wife, which eases the burden some, but Patina remains convinced that the load is hers to carry alone. So she assumes responsibilities of the household, making sure her mother is taken care of and especially looking after her baby sister, Maddy. ![]() After the sudden death of her father, and after her mother’s increasingly degenerating diabetes takes away her legs, Patina “Patty” Jones, all of twelve, feels it’s up to her to pick up the pieces of their upended life. Reynolds’ dedication reads, “For those who’ve been passed the baton too young.” Patina is the story of a young Black girl forced to grow up entirely too soon. It’s a subdued tone that belies deeper, heavier themes, though. Patina, in comparison, is a much quieter story, dealing as it does with the many routines and responsibilities of its title character. ![]() Ghost is an explosive story, literally beginning and ending with shots going off. So it’s nothing but a shame that it took me so long to get to its follow-up, Patina, because I ended up loving and appreciating this story even more. I had read Ghost, the first entry in the Track series by personal fave Jason Reynolds a couple of years ago, and it more or less blew me away. ![]()
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