Lifted

Henry is a middle-school student in the American South. His father, a reservist, has been called back to Afghanistan. Things are not good at home, and there are bullies at school. The one place Henry holds on to is singing. When a singing competition opens he clings to it; while preparing he has to deal both with his father's absence and with something he cannot tell anyone. Lexi Alexander had made hard fighting and crime films before; this is the gentlest work she made in those years. The approach rests on a familiar mould: a talent competition, a hard childhood, salvation on stage. What saves the film from the mould is that it does not soften the boy's situation at home. Uriah Shelton plays Henry. Ruben Studdard is also in the film. The songs are well chosen and the gospel tradition sits inside the telling.