College buddy films are traditionally light-hearted, filled with a gaggle of carefree teens or twenty-somethings engaging in days and nights of wild debauchery that eventually comes to a soft landing, buttoned up with a bow that makes you reminisce about your own friendships. Emergency adds to this subgenre with a weighted story through the perspective of a Black man in America that doubles down on that experience while exploring topics of policing, white fragility, and white masculinity. It’s one heck of a ride, but not one that many have to take.
Best friends Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) and Sean (RJ Cyler) are determined to land themselves in the “Hall of Firsts,” a shrine dedicated to Black students and alumni who are the first to accomplish things on campus at Buchanan University. Sean is dead set on him and Kunle being the first Black students to complete the Legendary Tour, a pub-crawl through seven frat parties in one night. But, when they stop by their house to get ready, they find an unconscious white girl laying in the middle of their living room floor. And here’s where the adventure begins.
Their roommate Carlos (Sebastian Chacon) has been locked up in his room playing computer games and is equally shocked at the white girl on the floor. After attempting to get the girl to talk, Kunle and Carlos want to call the police for a quick solution to this predicament. Sean, on the other hand, insists that they find an alternative solution. He argues that three men of color in a room with a passed out white girl is a recipe for disaster, especially for anyone darker than a brown paper bag. Although all three men are living in color in America, Sean is the only one who has experienced what it’s like to be a Black man in America.
Early on, it’s clear that Kunle and Sean may share color but they don’t share the same history or outlook on what it’s like to be Black in America. At the start of the film, Kunle and Sean are sitting in a class where their professor begins to talk about hate speech. During the lecture, the white, British professor shows the n-word on the projector and proceeds to say it — repeatedly. If this were captured by a cell phone and gone viral, Black Twitter would’ve awakened to join Sean in his outrage as the professor continues to use the word. Kunle, on the other hand, sides with the premise of using the word for “educational purposes”. This is the first example of Sean and Kunle’s difference of perspective. Sean sees the use of the n-word during class as a loophole that white people use to rebel against being told they can’t do something — like not being allowed to use the n-word. Kunle, as he does throughout the film, sees things more glass half full, thinking the best of the professor and insisting that it isn’t a huge deal because the trigger warning is listed on the syllabus.
From here, their perspectives continue to clash throughout the film. It’s probably because Sean is ethnically Black while Kunle’s ethnicity is Nigerian American. Despite their shared appearance, their experiences couldn’t be more different and it’s this contrast that affects how they see each other’s Blackness and their own.
The film positions Kunle as a straight-laced college kid. In fact, Sean often refers to Kunle as an oreo (Black on the outside and white on the inside) and jokes about his substitute teacher outfits. Sean’s yang to his yin is laidback, rockin’ the latest streetwear apparel, braided hair, enjoys vaping, and uses the n-word often as part of his vernacular. Because of Kunle’s more palatable demeanor, he is well-liked and even hailed as “Black excellence.” Sean, on the other hand, is seen as a nuisance and a bad influence by those rooting for Kunle’s success.
Back to the white girl on the floor — it’s apparent that Sean is aware of where the situation might lead based on his own experiences. Despite his apparent street knowledge, Kunle and Carlos can’t seem to understand why they shouldn’t just call the police and be done with it. Finally, they all agree to drop the girl off somewhere she can be helped and they can get out of dodge.
As you can guess, there are several obstacles that twist and turn their night into a wild ride. The three wise or unwise men, depending on how you view them, are trying to transport this girl who appears to be getting sicker by the minute. At the same time, her older sister is trying to find her and is hot on their trail via location sharing.
During the ride, the white girl wakes up long enough to announce that she needs to use the bathroom. They stop in what appears to be a wealthy neighborhood. Across the street in a house with a Black Lives Matter sign, Sean notices a white woman watching him through her window. He signals to his friends to get the girl back in the car so they can quickly leave before the police show up and shoot them. Kunle immediately counters Sean saying that statistics show that the likelihood of getting shot by the police is extremely low. While they deliberate this fact, the woman from the window comes out with her husband and her phone in hand urging them to get out of their neighborhood because there will be “no drug deals in this neighborhood.”
Writer K.D. Dávila found subtle ways to weave other nuanced examples of Black life in America into the fabric of the film. And despite Kunle’s opposition to Sean, he isn’t the enemy. There’s nothing wrong with Kunle being hopeful, but the film shows that his optimism isn’t founded in the reality of the political-social climate, which in this case could be a life-threatening situation. It’s a naivety that leaves him vulnerable to inevitably join Sean in a shared experience of Blackness in America.
Carey Williams’ direction created visual representations of this conflict through selected framing. In a rewatch, viewers can see that when Kunle and Sean were on the same page, they were the only characters in the frame. Whenever Carlos joined the frame, Kunle and Sean would be in disagreement as if Carlos represented proximity to whiteness. This could also explain why Carlos was left to tend to the unknown white girl for the majority of the movie.
As we approach the close of the film, the friends reach a fork in the road. Kunle decides to stay and help the white girl get to the hospital and Sean elects to leave them behind after pleading with Kunle to save himself and leave the white people to solve their own problems. Kunle is the hero of this story and yet finds himself at the end of the barrel of a gun. He’s thrown to the ground and handcuffed while everyone, lighter than a paper bag, sits on the curb and watches. As my Bigmama used to say, “Experience is the best teacher. And it doesn’t have to be yours for you to learn.” This is what Sean was trying to protect Kunle from in the first place.
At the close of the film, Kunle is vibing with his friends. The worst is over. Everyone is safe. Everything is good until he hears a siren and is instantly drawn back to a place of fear and anxiety. The frame slowly closes in tight on Kunle’s face as his eyes water and his breath starts to get heavy, leaving the audience with a visual impression of the trauma Black people live with in America.
Funny, careful, smart, and thought-provoking, Emergency is a film that pays close attention to detail that Black life is not monolithic and the experiences that we face should be shared and respected across our communities.
Emergency is available to watch on Prime Video.
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