Director Tyler Perry’s compelling, fact-based drama is a painful reminder that heroic deeds can get overlooked, when history is compiled by biased reporters.
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| New enlistees, from left, Dolores (Sarah Jeffery), Lena (Ebony Obsidian), Elaine (Pepi Sonuga) and Johnnie Mae (Shanice Shantay) nervously wonder what awaits them. |
This was prompted by a bit of political pressure from Eleanor Roosevelt and her close friend, barrier-shattering Black educator Mary McLeod Bethune, who tirelessly crusaded for Black women to be allowed a more prominent role in the U.S. military.
Back in July 1942, after having graduating from Ohio’s Wilberforce College — with a triple major in physics, math and Latin, and a minor in history — and then teaching junior high school for four years, Charity Edna Adams enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps. By late 1944, she had risen to the rank of Major, becoming the war’s highest-ranking Black female officer.
She was selected to lead the Six Triple Eight’s 855 women on its overseas assignment: an “impossible” task that some of her blatantly racist white superior officers clearly hoped would prove too much for the battalion.
But that’s getting ahead of things.
Perry and co-scripter Kevin Hymel shine a welcome light on this riveting — and often astonishing — saga, which came to modern attention just a decade ago. (Absent some accidental research, it might have been forgotten entirely.)
Perry’s film is anchored by Kerry Washington’s powerful performance as Major Adams. She’s joined by a solid supporting cast: most notably Ebony Obsidian, as Lena Derriecott King (also an actual WAC).
The story begins stateside with Lena, who has fallen for the white, wealthy and Jewish Abram David (Gregg Sulkin) ... much to her mother’s disapproval and concern. Abram is unfazed; he’s madly in love with Lena, and doesn’t care what the rest of the world thinks. But he soon ships out to join the overseas war effort, after which she hears nothing.
No mail from him.
Lena enlists, hoping to somehow find out what — if anything — has happened to him. She quickly bonds with fellow newbies Bernice Baker (Kylie Jefferson), Dolores Washington (Sarah Jeffrey), Elaine White (Pepi Sonuga) and Johnnie Mae (Shanice Shantay).
(Baker is based on Elizabeth Bernice Barker, who became one of Lena’s best friends during their Army service. The other three are fictitious composites of actual Six Triple Eight WACs.)
The battalion is segregated — of course — and the women are subjected to countless indignities, such as having to fit into uniforms designed for “small, skinny white women.” That detail proves particularly vexing for the full-figured Johnnie Mae. Shantay has a lot of fun with this brash, flirty and foul-mouthed character, whose behavior frequently scandalizes — and amuses — the others.
Johnnie Mae initially sees Lena as an easy target for snarky verbal digs; Bernice often intervenes. As the days pass, though, the five young women become inseparable friends. All five actresses make the camaraderie persuasively warm and caring.
The diminutive Lena finds basic training difficult, even overwhelming, which garners the wrong sort of attention from Major Adams, who — fully aware of the disapproving eyes upon her — knows that every woman under her command must be Army-worthy.
Indeed, better than their white counterparts.
Adams is assisted by her executive officer, Captain Abbie Noel Campbell (Milauna Jackson, also playing an actual person). Although Jackson’s performance isn’t flashy, it’s quietly forceful; we’ve no doubt Campbell worked equally hard to achieve her rank.
The army’s “problem” comes to light via a (likely fictitious) encounter between Eleanor Roosevelt (Susan Sarandon) and a worried mother who hasn’t received any mail from her son, deployed overseas. The reason for this is a major military screw-up; rapid troop movement has resulted in a two-year backlog of undelivered mail. Soldiers and their families have been cut off from each other, which has resulted in low morale.
(As Jennie Rothenberg Gritz’s fascinating February 2023 Smithsonian magazine article points out, the problem was exacerbated further by the number of service members who had the same name ... including 7,500 Robert Smiths.)
The Six Triple Eight is sent overseas — by boat — and ultimately winds up in a disused school building in Birmingham, England. The assignment: to clear a backlog of undelivered mail that literally fills six airplane hangers.
This prompts Major Adams to coin what becomes the battalion’s motto: “No mail, low morale.”
But before the women can begin this onerous task, they first must make their quarters habitable ... and that’s also a challenge.
The battalion is given a six-month deadline by General Halt (Dean Norris), this story’s token villain. He’s a condescending, racist and confrontational bully who resents having been “coerced” into giving this assignment to the Six Triple Eight, and clearly hopes the women will fail; Norris makes him appropriately hateful.
And yes; the actual Adams really did respond with the line that Washington delivers so tartly, when — after several weeks have passed — Halt threatens to send a white lieutenant to show the major how to run her battalion.
(It’s a shame this is a streaming film, because that line certainly would elicit a cheer from a packed movie theater audience.)
Washington is sublime; she radiates leadership, integrity, intelligence and — most of all — pride. Adams also is defiant at appropriate moments, particularly when confronted with overt disrespect. When two lower-ranking soldiers fail to acknowledge her at one point, her snappy comment is laced with just the right amount of venom: “You don’t salute officers?”
Obsidian’s Lena initially is waiflike, unprepared and vulnerable. One of this film’s many joys is watching her self-confidence improve, a “growing up” that Obsidian handles quite well.
Perry and Hymel employ a clever gimmick as the story proceeds, very much like Steven Spielberg’s little girl in the red coat, in Schindler’s List.
The sole time Tyler’s directorial hand falters comes during an early scene with Sarandon, Sam Waterston and Oprah Winfrey — the latter two as President Roosevelt and Bethune — during a meeting with General Halt. The moment is awkward and stagey; the two women also are ill-served by their wigs and make-up. (Fortunately, we don’t see them again.)
Arron Zigman’s score slides effortlessly from stirring orchestral cues and marches to period swing music. His Americana backing themes for the key Six Triple Eight characters feel positively regal.
Tyler has delivered a crowd-pleaser that also serves as an important historical document. Given the story’s dramatic heft, it’s a great choice for all-ages holiday viewing.
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