When a museum celebrating the Ku Klux Klan opens in a South Carolina town, the idealistic Reverend Kennedy strives to keep the peace even as he urges the group’s Grand Dragon to disavow his racist past.
This film, based on a true story, took over twenty years to come to fruition. Even winning an award at the Sundance Festival four years ago wasn’t enough ammunition to prepare a shotgun society for its consortium of bulletproof radicals such as the KKK. Over the years, it appears that director Andrew Heckler found a way to offer a story of restitution to both sides of a racial divide and finally, we’re able to gain perspective with regard to a series of racially impactful events that took place in 1996 in Laurens, South Carolina between the KKK leader Tom Griffin (Tom Wilkinson), the son he raised as an orphan, Mike Burden (Garrett Hedlund), and a local preacher, Reverend Kennedy (Forest Whitaker), who tried to get his parishioners and his immediate family members to follow his lead of maintaining a righteous countenance in spite of how they were being treated.
The plot revolves around the KKK unveiling a Redneck Shop and KKK Museum, in the midst of heightened racial tensions where no resolution seems to be amicable for either side. The KKK leader is a strong advocate for his group and raised his son to be the same way. On the other side of town, Reverend Kennedy had a doting wife, Janice Kennedy (Crystal Fox), who respects all the things her husband believes in until things start getting personal with the treatment of their own son and her husband’s unwillingness to walk away from the fight. After having been raised in the comfort of his KKK surroundings, Mike begins to see things differently when his girlfriend Judy (Andrea Riseborough), shows him true love and compassion for a race other than his own. The plot remorsefully thickens when Mike makes a decision to quit the KKK and goes against his father’s teachings and all that he has ever known. His father retaliates by stripping him of everything, including his home, his job, and all his resources. Furthermore, all hell breaks loose when the Rev. Kennedy offers him a place to stay, food to eat and an opportunity to work. The story takes an interesting turn when, as a token of appreciation for having his back, he offers the Reverend a surprise gift that would transfer ownership of the museum to the church.
Kudos to director Andrew Heckler for taking the time to develop several complicated relationships that all proved beneficial to the plot. One of the most redeeming parts of the story, other than the relationship between Rev. Kennedy is the relationship between Mike and his girlfriend Judy (Andrea Riseborough), and although she has never had much of anything, she manages to hold down a job and her man, until the wrath of the KKK catches up with her. As a single mother, Judy consistently demonstrates an undying love for her son as well as provide a strong backbone for everything she encounters, trying to protect who she loves, in spite of her losses. In addition to all the elements of racial injustice, the underlying them of triumph over human inequities is prevalent and at times almost too heavy a burden to bear. However, the presence of strong women who stand by their men over the course of a lifetime of insurmountable odds is definitely worth noting, as well as the entire change of heart of a former Klan member who realizes the error of his ways. While “Burden” is cumbersome in the retelling of an age-old story of racism, there are lighter parts where love’s triumph over hate has its own redemptive value.
In Theaters Friday, March 6th
