Legacy

When Terrell Collins, a promising 14-year-old African-American student living in Chicago's Henry Horner Homes projects, was gunned down over a school argument, the extended Collins family saw the bright shining light of their future snuffed out in an instant. Filmed over a 5-year period, Tod Lending's Oscar-nominated Legacy, narrated by Terell's cousin Nickcole Collins, chronicles the incredible journey of three generations of Collins' women--Nickcole's welfare-dependent grandmother and mother, as well as her drug-addicted aunt, and Nickcole herself--women who, in the wake of the tragedy, struggled to pull themselves up by their individual bootstraps (in a world where fathers and husbands were absent) to find gainful employment, escape the projects, get off drugs, and enter college. Although it might sound like a simply remarkable Hallmark-like documentary-of-the-week, what really saves (and distinguishes) Legacy from the feel-good pack is its exceptionally human (and humane) insights into an environment most of us will fortunately never experience. Most touching, I think, are the stories of Nickcole's mother and aunt Wanda: the former, struggling with the lack of self confidence that makes it easier and safer to remain on welfare; the latter, after a life on the streets as a drug-addled prostitute, finding a new family within a drug rehab group. For its wide-ranging examination of a whole slew of contemporary social issues--including race, violence, substance abuse, poverty, and public housing--seen through the prism of one family's painful, yet ultimately, triumphant experience, this uplifting portrait is highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)