Tyler Perry’s “The Six Triple Eight” (2024) is a biopic dramatization of the American 6888th Battalion. They were the only Women’s army corps of color that served during the Second World War. Their extraordinary service has gone unremarked, just as they had been during their lifetimes. The film commemorates their tireless commitment to duty in the face of constant denigration and mockery, never letting it dent their spirit.
The Six Triple Eight (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Love and Loss Amidst the Flames of War
The film opens on the Italian battlefield in December of 1943. It begins with death. There’s commotion and disarray. Quickly, we are shifted away from the battlefield chaos to the hush-hush blossoming of romance between Lena (Ebony Obsidian) and Abram (Gregg Sulkin). However, they are an interracial couple, him being a Jew and her a Black woman. It is the 1940s and their relationship wouldn’t be easily accepted and hence largely frowned upon.
Abram goes away to Europe as the war duty calls. He is a combat pilot. He promises he’ll write to her and on his return, they will marry. She waits with bated breath for his letters. But they never come. It’s a drawn-out period of anguished waiting. Suddenly, one day, she gets a mail that informs her Abram has been killed on duty. Heartbroken, she decides to join the army to do her bit in fighting Hitler, for whom the love of her life got taken away. Neither can she afford university. Joining the army is her best bet.
Can Courage and Unity Triumph Over Injustice?
But of course, there are varied hurdles being a woman of color entails. There is a distinct double marginalization at play. It’s the tendency of white men not to regard the experience and service of Black women, irrespective of the excessive number of hours they put in and the compounded ordeal of having to prove themselves worthy at every step of the way. The minute she enters the corps, she encounters deep-seated segregation. The battalion of Black women is led by Major Charity (Kerry Washington). After months of pleading for assignments, the women are tasked with taking care of the held-up postal services for the soldiers on the field.
When they first get the duty of the postal delivery, Charity is enraged at the implied condescension. But soon she realizes the sheer magnitude of the task, with only six months of assigned time. To top it, the women are put in conditions where basic amenities are lacking or the situations are in stark disrepair. They have to first put it all into proper shape and form. Then, convert the space into a place where they can work and live with decent hygiene. The space has no heating either.
The Six Triple Eight (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
How Did the Battalion Finally Gain the Recognition They Deserved?
Two of the women get killed on duty. But the white Generals refuse to give them a decent burial. Even that task is taken up by the battalion, who accord the fallen due dignity and respect. There’s considerable delay in the battalion’s sincere efforts in ensuring the letters get to the soldiers and theirs back to their families. Finally, Lena comes up with a way of putting the symbols the soldiers write in the letters as clues for their real locations. This is the decisive expedient to the whole process, bringing speed and efficiency to the delivery of mail that was otherwise going undeliverable.
This also makes all the white officers who were belittling and dismissing the battalion finally take them seriously, and see the urgency and importance of their work. They are duly recognized for their rigorous service. The battalion is further sent for delivery service in other parts of Europe. However, back home in the US, it takes much longer for recognition and acknowledgment to come their way. It’s only very recently some of the women were bestowed with the Congressional medal and a US Army fort was named after two Black army officials, Charity being the first Black woman to be recognized.
The Six Triple Eight (2024) Movie Review:
There’s only so much righteous rage a film can carry before it collapses into an exhausted rant. Films can rail at the world and the ways in which rules apply differently to certain less privileged, historically marginalized sections and races of people. It is a constant battle of re-assertion, a strenuous race of proving one’s mettle and talent in a world that would rather dispose of those who don’t come within a skewed worldview of greater power and hierarchy. Perry’s film is ostensibly about a group of Black women who held their ground and made the white colonels and lieutenants come around to respect them, no matter if it took time and life-draining persistence.
The problem with the film is it gets wholly stuck in the resistance to being disenfranchised and sidelined and not being heard as the Black women truly want to be. It doesn’t advance a considered critique, content to dish out impassioned, incensed rants every now and then through Kerry Washington’s character. She plays the Major who is doubly under scrutiny for turning the black women under her out as impeccable as they possibly can be. The slightest mistake and loosening up brings criticism and disfavor against Major Charity.
Read More: Black History Month: 25 Impactful And Uplifting Movies About Black People
The film sees her character only through this angle. The same holds as true for the other women. When we first meet the smaller group with whom Lena gets closer, we are led to think the characters may develop some sort of dynamics. Alas, no such thing happens. Even the protagonist herself is drawn in broad shades. Her quest for closure, for the letters her lover promised, obviously comes through her duty.
The film shows no interest in women beyond the basic markers. They are diligent, stubborn, and extremely hard-working. Where are their breaking points, that wrestling churn of inner life? Some tears are occasionally shed, voices raised in protest and that’s about it. The film scarcely peeps into the micro edges. As a result, even Lena’s journey of healing and coming to terms with grief feels cursorily swept aside and re-summoned casually to be tied up all of a sudden. The film has its heart in the right place but ultimately it comes across as a laundry list, a course correction to the way history remembers, with no style to spare.
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