There is one scene in Selah and the Spades that gets to the root of writer/director Tayarisha Poe’s tale of control and the damage caused by an insatiable thirst for power. It comes late in the film, and it’s between the titular high school senior Selah and her young protégé, Paloma. It’s a test of loyalty. Selah’s unrivaled power as the head of the Spades is in question. The Spades is the most powerful of the five factions – think the five families in The Godfather – serving up every vice you could think of to the students of a well-to-do Pennsylvania boarding school.
Selah asks Paloma to prove her fealty. The scene perfectly captures – in no small part thanks to the performance of Lovie Simone, who plays Selah – just how drunk our hero is on her own power. We see Paloma in the next scene, walking in a daze with bloody knuckles. She has done what Selah asked. She has, in this moment, anyway, passed the test.
If only the rest of Selah and the Spades was as focused and compelling as that one scene.