Devotion is the story of the late Naval aviator Jesse Brown, who lost his life during the Korean war. The film’s director J.D. Dillard is a Cheltenham native and the son of Bruce Dillard, the second Black member of the Blue Angels and a Naval aviator. He spent his childhood surrounded by aircrafts and military culture, making Dillard very qualified to tell this story.
The film is significant because it is the first major studio film about the Korean War since Gregory Peck’s “Pork Chop Hill” in 1959. It’s relevant because it’s the first Navy aviation movie to come out after “Top Gun: Maverick,” and the producers effectively incorporated many of the filming methods that made that Tom Cruise movie so thrilling.
Dillard discussed the motivations behind telling Jesse Brown’s tale and the outcomes he anticipates as a result.
“The thing that always struck me about Jesse was that he just wanted to fly and when he looked at his options he found a path through the Navy. There was something about that relentless pursuit that I relate. I see my dad, who very similarly was 14 years old when saw the Blue Angels for the first time but a few months after his father had passed and 15 years later found himself on those blue planes.”
Another motivation is to tell the stories of our servicemen and women who have fought for their country. It’s no surprise that African Americans’ contributions to the war effort have been largely overlooked and undervalued. “To see how extraordinary Jesse was in spite of that makes him a hero in such a specific way,” Dillard added.
The beginning of the film contains one of the most intense scenes. You overhear words and wonder if someone is being racially attacked, only to realize it’s Jesse tightening his armor.
Dillard expounded why those scenes were important to the film “It was one of the heartbreaking but incredible things to find out about. It was actually part of Jesse’s life. He did that as a younger person. He kept a lot of the hateful things people had said to him but in a movie where we weren’t going to be doing the traditional flashing through the first twenty years of his life. We wanted to meet Jesse as he crescendo into the thing he always wanted to do but you still want to service the reality of how hard it was for him.”
Those scenes gave the audience a little window into what Jesse dealt with as a Black aviator.
The other intriguing aspect of Devotion is Tom Hudner’s (Glen Powell) worldview. He wasn’t a racist white man, but he didn’t understand Brown’s struggles because of his own.
“What Tom holds as a character is a neutral positivity. Part of what he tries to realize in the movie is not enough. To be neutrally positive does not constitute being a wingman aka an ally. As they work through their friendship in the film, Tom realizes there has to be a very specific way that he needs to be here for Jesse.”
Hudner is an example of how to become more than just a friend, but also an advocate.
This film has many tough moments but one of the standouts is the relationship between Jesse and Daisy (Christina Jackson). “To understand Jesse is to see how he loves and is loved,” Dillard summarizes. “It’s important for the audience to know that he had a place of refuge and peace and his home life with his family represented that.”
“Devotion” is a film introducing the world to a forgotten hero in Jesse Brown beautifully portrayed by the amazing Jonathan Majors but it also shows that one can achieve their dreams in spite of what the world tells you, “you can’t.”
“Devotion” is in theaters now.
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