Talk to Me is a high energy comedy with disheartening sadness and wild laughter. A great cast, tons of laughs, truly human behavior and the spin of it being based on a true story made Talk to Me a joy to watch.
Talk to Me is the story of Ralph “Petey” Greene, an ex-con turned Washington D.C. radio personality. When Dewey Huges (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Petey Greene (Don Cheadle) first meet, Petey is an inmate in jail who has his own show over the prison public address system. Disgusted by Greene, Huges sarcastically encourages him to visit him at work, a radio station, for a job, if he is ever released. Much to Huges’ chagrin, he is released. With all the pomp and circumstance an ex-con in the 60’s could muster, he and his girlfriend Vernaell (Taraji P. Henson) blow into the radio station and demand an interview. Much to everyone’s surprise, including Hughes, and with a little persuasion, Petey gets a job as a DJ. Using his dark and crazy past to add spice to the airwaves, he creates controversy and laughter where ever he goes. Petey even helps the community through one of its most emotional and heart breaking times. All throughout the movie Petey has difficulty balancing his new fame and his relationships with his girlfriend and manager.
To call Don Cheadle flamboyant in Talk to Me would get me convicted of crimes of understatement. In nearly every scene he walks with a bold confidence that makes you a little repulsed by his arrogance but ultimately drawn to him. Petey walks like he always has a theme song playing in his head. The movie isn’t all fun and games for Petey; and Cheadle makes his melt downs just as ostentatious.
Dewey Huges is the anti-Petey. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Huges with such refinement and dignity that everything he does makes Petey seem more over the top. Ejiofor is spectacular whenever he gets uptight and seriously wound up.
The interaction between Petey and Dewey is the source of most tension in the movie. They are great friends but their personalities get in the way of understanding each other. Cheadle and Ejiofor have phenomenal chemistry. The audience feels their tension and their love for each other. Either love or hate, they are passionate about each other.
Vernaell (Taraji P. Henson) and Petey’s relationship is just as passionate. Henson and Cheadle make Vernaell and Petey sizzle with wild and wreckless emotion. They love like they are going to die tomorrow, and they fight the same way. The hearts and daggers are often funny and occasionally hurtful but still funny.
Henson plays Vernaell like she knows she is smokin’ hot, and knows you know she knows. Her righteous anger never wanders into cliché or teeter into insanity. Her love for Petey never feels contrived or forced. Their on screen relationship is always fresh and believable, not to mention really fun to watch.
The movie’s shining star is when it turns serious. A major event in American history rocks the station out of its infighting and into a great sense of mourning. Petey has to try to keep his community together. Everyone in the scene, Ejiofor, Henson, Cheadle, Cedric the Entertainer (plays a womanizing dj at the station), Michael Scheen (who plays the progressive station manager) is exceptional. The emotional resonance of the scene sneaks up on you in unexpected ways.
There is nothing particularly exceptional about how the movie is shot, mostly the standard. What is in the frame is pretty amazing though. The costumes are fantastic. Costume Designer Gersha Phillips is allowed to dress me for my next retro-themed party. When the media ask me who I am wearing, I would gleefully gush, “Gersha Phillips of course.” Art director Patrick Banister and set decorator Carolyn “Cal” Loucks can decorate my retro themed party because the sets in Talk to Me are wonderful.
Talk to Me is fantastic, fresh, and fun. See it when all you really need is a laugh!