Fruitvale Station Trailer: Your First Look At The Harrowing Sundance Hit

If there's any reason to be harsh on this trailer it's for the tonal and musical shifts, bringing me \from celebratory to tense to calmed to angry. And that's not even a bad thing-- it's actually perfect way to get me even more interested in this film than I was already. After taking Sundance on a dark ride and earning some major awards in the process, Fruitvale Station is two months away from wreaking a small amount of havoc on the psyches of movie-goers across the nation, and it can’t get here fast enough. But it probably shouldn’t take the train to get here.

The Roots’ “Now or Never” is probably the perfect song to link the trailer’s lighter moments to the tragic real life story of the last day of Oscar Grant’s life. On December 31, 2008, Grant (Michael B. Jordan) was set to change his life patterns and resolve his relationships with his mother (Octavia Spencer), his girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz) and his four-year-old daughter Tatiana (Ariana Neal). But fate is not as forgiving as his family, and a New Year’s Eve trip via Oakland’s rapid transit slowly turns more and more ugly. Enter some transit cops on a hair-trigger and one of the more avoidable tragedies in recent memory comes to its fully public fruition at Fruitvale Station.

It’s only been a few years since this incident and its subsequent court case made the news rounds, and this trailer easily brings up all the angst-ridden disgust that was felt at the time. So I can’t even imagine how excruciating the actual feature will be. Our own Katey Rich was “holding back tears and alive with anger” at the end of her screening, and I have a feeling everyone else will feel the same way.

I’ll make sure to bring my most rage-fueled handkerchief with me to the theater, when Fruitvale Station sees its July 16 release. Take a look at film’s first poster below.

”fruitvale”

Nick Venable
Assistant Managing Editor

Nick is a Cajun Country native and an Assistant Managing Editor with a focus on TV and features. His humble origin story with CinemaBlend began all the way back in the pre-streaming era, circa 2009, as a freelancing DVD reviewer and TV recapper.  Nick leapfrogged over to the small screen to cover more and more television news and interviews, eventually taking over the section for the current era and covering topics like Yellowstone, The Walking Dead and horror. Born in Louisiana and currently living in Texas — Who Dat Nation over America’s Team all day, all night — Nick spent several years in the hospitality industry, and also worked as a 911 operator. If you ever happened to hear his music or read his comics/short stories, you have his sympathy.