It’s hard to talk about the native son movie 1986 without acknowledging the massive weight it carried before a single frame was even shot. Richard Wright’s 1940 novel wasn't just a book; it was a cultural earthquake. It laid bare the suffocating reality of systemic racism through the eyes of Bigger Thomas, a young Black man in Chicago trapped in a cycle of poverty and fear. By the time the mid-80s rolled around, director Jerrold Freedman and producer Diane Silver took on the Herculean task of bringing this "unfilmable" story to a modern audience.
What they ended up with was... complicated.
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Honestly, if you watch it today, the film feels like a strange time capsule. It stars Victor Love as Bigger Thomas, alongside heavy hitters like Elizabeth McGovern, Matt Dillon, and even Oprah Winfrey in an early dramatic role. But despite the star power, the movie struggled to capture the internal, psychological horror that made Wright’s prose so devastating. It’s a period piece that feels very much like a product of the 1980s, trying to find its footing between social commentary and a standard Hollywood thriller.
The Casting Gamble of Victor Love
When you’re adapting a character as iconic as Bigger Thomas, the casting is everything. Victor Love was largely an unknown at the time. He had the look—the simmering intensity and the physical presence required to play a man who feels the walls of society closing in on him.
But here’s where it gets tricky.
In the novel, Bigger’s internal monologue is a frantic, terrifying mess of resentment and existential dread. On screen, a lot of that gets lost. Love does his best, but the script often leaves him standing in rooms looking confused or angry without the audience truly grasping why his fear has reached a boiling point. Critics at the time, including Roger Ebert, pointed out that the movie seemed to soften Bigger. It made him more of a victim of circumstance and less of the complex, often frighteningly reactive figure Wright originally penned.
Then you have Oprah Winfrey. She plays Mrs. Thomas, Bigger’s mother. It’s a relatively small role, but she brings a grounded, weary humanity to it. This was 1986—the same year The Oprah Winfrey Show went national. Seeing her in this grit-and-grime setting is a reminder of her range before she became the undisputed queen of daytime media.
Why the 1986 Version Fumbled the Bag on Tone
The native son movie 1986 tries to be two things at once. On one hand, it’s a faithful retelling of a tragic crime. Bigger gets a job as a chauffeur for the wealthy Dalton family. He accidentally kills their daughter, Mary (played by Elizabeth McGovern), in a moment of sheer, blind panic because he’s terrified of being caught in her bedroom—even though his intentions weren't malicious.
Then it turns into a fugitive movie.
The problem is the pacing. The first half of the film builds this slow, creeping tension. You see the disparity between the Daltons' pristine world and Bigger’s cramped, rat-infested apartment. But once the crime happens, the movie loses its psychological edge. It starts to feel like a standard "man on the run" flick. Matt Dillon pops up as Jan Erlone, the communist boyfriend of the deceased Mary Dalton. Dillon’s performance is fine, but the political subtext of the 1940s—the tension between labor movements, communism, and race—feels a bit watered down in this 80s adaptation.
It's kinda jarring.
The cinematography by Stephen H. Burum (who worked on The Untouchables) is actually quite good. It uses shadow and light to emphasize Bigger’s isolation. But great lighting can’t fix a script that’s afraid to go as dark as the source material. The 1986 version cuts out some of the more gruesome details of the book—specifically what Bigger does to hide the body—which, while understandable for a PG-13 or R rating, robs the story of its gut-punching reality.
Critics vs. the Legacy of Richard Wright
When the film hit theaters, the reviews were lukewarm at best. People wanted a masterpiece. They got a decent drama.
Most scholars of African American literature argue that the 1951 version (starring Richard Wright himself as Bigger Thomas!) or the more recent 2019 HBO adaptation directed by Rashid Johnson do a better job of exploring the "Native Son" themes. The 1986 version is often relegated to a footnote.
Why?
Basically, it lacked the "teeth." Richard Wright wrote the book to make people uncomfortable. He wanted to show that society had created Bigger Thomas—that he was a "native son" of America's own making. The 1986 movie feels a bit more like a cautionary tale about bad luck. It doesn't quite hold the audience’s face to the fire the way the book does.
However, it’s not all bad. If you're a film student or a history buff, watching this version is a fascinating look at how Hollywood tried to handle race in the Reagan era. It’s sanitized, sure, but it’s also an earnest attempt to bring a difficult Black narrative to a mainstream audience.
Key Differences Between the Novel and the 1986 Film
If you're writing a paper or just curious, here are the main shifts:
- The Furnace Scene: In the book, the disposal of Mary Dalton’s body is a visceral, horrifying sequence that defines Bigger’s descent. In the 1986 film, it’s handled with much more "tasteful" restraint.
- The Internal Monologue: You lose the sense of Bigger’s "fate." In the book, he feels like he was always meant to kill. In the movie, it feels like a total accident that he's just trying to cover up.
- The Ending: The courtroom scenes in the 1986 version feel rushed. The grand philosophical arguments about why Bigger is the way he is are trimmed down to make room for more "action."
What We Can Learn from This Adaptation Today
Looking back at the native son movie 1986, it serves as a reminder that some books are genuinely hard to film. To capture Bigger Thomas, you have to be willing to make the audience hate him and pity him at the same time. You have to be willing to show the ugliness of the world without blinking.
The 1986 crew blinked.
But that doesn't mean it’s not worth your time. It features a solid score by James Mtume and provides a snapshot of a time when Black stories were starting to get more funding, even if the creative control wasn't always where it needed to be. It’s a bridge between the blaxploitation era of the 70s and the "New Black Cinema" wave of the early 90s that gave us Spike Lee and John Singleton.
How to Approach Watching It Now
If you're planning to track down a copy (it pops up on streaming services like Tubi or Criterion occasionally), go in with these steps:
- Read the first 50 pages of the book first. It’ll give you the internal context the movie misses.
- Watch for the sets. The production design does a great job of showing the physical "trap" of the South Side of Chicago.
- Compare the lawyers. Pay attention to the defense attorney, Max. In the book, his speech is the soul of the story. In the 1986 film, see if you think his arguments still hold up.
The film remains a polarizing piece of cinema. It isn't the definitive version of the story, but it’s a significant moment in the history of Black literature on screen. It showed that even with a big budget and famous actors, the ghost of Richard Wright’s message is a difficult thing to cage.
For those looking to understand the evolution of racial narratives in American film, this movie is an essential, if flawed, stop on that journey. It forces us to ask: can Hollywood ever truly handle a character as broken and honest as Bigger Thomas? The 1986 version says "maybe," but the struggle to get it right continues to this day.
Actionable Insight: If you're analyzing this for a class or project, focus your research on the "Reagan-era lens." Look at how the film’s production notes describe the "universalizing" of the story—this was a common tactic in the 80s to make Black stories more "palatable" to white audiences, and it explains almost all the changes made to Wright’s original text. Reference the work of film historian Donald Bogle for deeper context on how Victor Love’s portrayal fits into the broader history of Black men in cinema.