(L-R) Aaron Dominguez, Aubrey Joseph, Andrew Kai, Jeremy Pope, McCaul Lombardi Credit: Courtesy of A24

On November 18, writer and director Elegance Bratton's "The Inspection," starring Jeremy Pope, Raúl Castillo, and Aaron Dominguez, with Gabrielle Union and Bokeem Woodbine, will hit theaters across the country in limited release. Bratton ("Pier Kids," "Buck"), who is openly gay and a former U.S. Marine, has written and directed an epic American drama that is unapologetically Black and queer. These two ingredients would have almost ensured a mainstream film to be dead on arrival before the 2017 Best Picture Oscar win for "Moonlight."

Inspired by actual events, "The Inspection" tells the story of Ellis French (Pope), a young Black gay man rejected by his mother, Inez French (Union), because of his sexual orientation. After being kicked out of the family home, French is thrust into homelessness in New York City. With few options for his future, he joins the Marines to win his mother's love. In the era of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the former discriminatory policy prohibiting out LGBTQ service members, French faces the grueling requirements of boot camp, blatant homophobia, and an unrelenting determination to succeed.

Six years in the making, Bratton tells The Reckoning, "The Inspection" began as part of the narrative of a planned autobiography that he ultimately decided to shelve. He credits his husband and producing partner, Chester Algernal-Gordon, for encouraging him to bring his story to the big screen.

"You need to tell a story that brings audiences to a place they could never go unless you take them there. It has to be really personal," Bratton recalls Algernal-Gordon saying to him at the time. "He insisted that The Inspection would be the one that would change our lives."

But Bratton had to confront the trauma of his past for the film to materialize.

"I was put out at 16 because I couldn't confirm that I wasn't gay. I would refuse to," Bratton says.

“It’s hard for me to put into words how hard it is to start your adult life when the very essence of who you are is why someone that you love so deeply puts you out of their home.”

— Elegance Bratton

By the time he turned 18, Bratton says he'd become familiar with couch surfing, performing street poetry for money, and committing theft to survive.

"I used to steal everything, particularly art books," he says. "They were very profitable for me because you can resell those books at a very high value. I hustled to stay alive, made friends where I could, and avoided danger as best I could."

Bratton says his mother would periodically offer him shelter in her New Jersey apartment, only to kick him out again, each time denying his humanity and increasing his housing instability.

"It's hard for me to put into words how hard it is to start your adult life when the very essence of who you are is why someone that you love so deeply puts you out of their home," he says. "It's very hard to believe in yourself. It's very hard to think that you deserve good things."

Bratton says he found a sense of purpose and responsibility in the Marines. It's also where he learned to love and respect himself.

"I was fortunate enough to have a drill instructor tell me that my life had meaning, value, and purpose, that I mattered because I had a responsibility to the Marine, to my left and my right. That was a transformational suggestion," he says.

Bratton's choice to cast actress Gabrielle Union in the role of his mother came as a surprise to most Hollywood insiders, Union included, but would prove to be as transformational for the director as his decision to enlist in the Marines.

"My mother is the first person to ever love me completely, and she's also the first person to ever reject me wholly," Bratton says." I'm grateful to Gabrielle Union for helping bring my mom back to life. She provided me with a sense of closure that I don't know if I would've found without this film."

Gabrielle Union Credit: Patti Perret (Courtesy of A24)

The transformative power of Gabrielle Union

As far as Bratton was concerned, Gabrielle Union had to be the actress cast to play his mother.

"He had a level of confidence in my ability that I did not have in myself, and certainly this town [Hollywood] had not had in me," Union tells The Reckoning.

"He said, 'We've always known what you can do.' And I knew he meant the Black community has always known what I could do, that I had range, that I could do anything," she says.

Union is also an executive producer of "The Inspection." Her gut-wrenching performance in a role opposite of who she is as an outspoken LGBTQ+ advocate and stepmother of a trans daughter is gaining considerable Oscar buzz.

"I've never necessarily had the urge to want to portray somebody like this," she says. "I hope I've never given off anything that would make people think, 'Oh, you could be good at this.' It was more like, why me, given how I live and my family?"

Union arrives at the why rather quickly regarding the message she hopes the film will send to parents of LGBTQ+ children.

"Perhaps parents will recognize that they might be the villain in their child's story and change course," Union says. "God bless your intentions, but the way it lands is causing harm. Abuse will never be protection. And considering your children disposable should never be on the table," she says.

“Perhaps parents will recognize that they might be the villain in their child’s story and change course. God bless your intentions, but the way it lands is causing harm. Abuse will never be protection.”

— Gabrielle Union

"Your intention and love for your child does not have to translate into a disconnect, rejection, abuse, or harm," Union adds. "I think a lot of us hold on to certain elements of organized religion, thinking it will make us whole. We believe that rejecting our LGBTQIA children is absolutely on the table, and reasonably so. Like, we must reject them to save them," she says. "We must abuse them to prepare them. We must harm them to show them the kind of life they will have when all we're doing is damaging relationships that will never be repaired or are incredibly difficult to repair."

Union says her relationship with co-star and openly gay actor Jeremy Pope blossomed into a genuine connection onscreen and off following a COVID-19 outbreak that shut down production for three months. The two actors bonded on a private jet supplied by Union's husband, Dwyane Wade, from on set in Jackson, MS, back to the west coast.

"On that flight from Jackson to L.A., we had all the things," Union says. "We laughed, and we cried. We got to really know each other. By the time we came back to filming, it felt like a mother-and-child relationship. I will do anything to protect him. I will do anything to promote him. I will do anything to make sure he has the life and career he wants if I have anything to say or do about it," she says.

Gabrielle Union, Jeremy Pope Credit: Patti Perret Courtesy of A24

"When I was writing multiple drafts of the script, Jeremy was at the top of the list of actors I wanted to play this part. He radiates on screen," says Bratton.

Pope was not available before publishing this article but is scheduled to speak with The Reckoning later this month. He spoke about his experience working with Bratton in October during a talkback following a screening of “The Inspection" at The New York Film Festival.

"I feel very grateful that I was being directed by someone who had gone through this—a Black queer man that outside of what our script was saying, we could talk about what was happening in life," Pope says. "There were certain days when I was carrying a lot of his [pain]; he was carrying a lot of mine. And that's why this film was so healing and important for me— just on my human journey—on my path of life. I walked out of this film feeling stronger and feeling more confident in my Black and in my queer," he says.

“We often spoke about what it would've meant to us as teenagers to have a movie like this and have a character like Ellis French, Bratton says before admitting that he has been actively searching for himself on screen for most of his adult life.

The Black queer representation onscreen in “The Inspection” and behind the scenes, Union says, is the result of Bratton and the entire cast's unflinching vulnerability.

"This role took him [Pope] to dark places. It took me to dark places," she says. "Elegance was in the throes of grief. We could have all slipped away. We wanted to make sure the love was there in the room at all times."

"There's a larger purpose of bringing light to our stories. And hopefully, providing Black folks and queer folks a real hero that they can see themselves in, so they don't have to do the intellectual, emotional algebra to see glimpses of themselves [on screen]," Bratton says. "Project by project, story by story. We are slowly breaking through this glass ceiling of representation."

"The Inspection" is presented by A24 and Gamechanger Films, with Effie Brown and Chester Algernal Gordon producing. The film will begin its limited-release run on November 18, 2022.