How ‘The Inspection’ Filmmaker Elegance Bratton, Stars Gabrielle Union and Jeremy Pope Found Personal Healing Through the True-Life Tale
variety.comAngelique Jackson “The Inspection” writer-director Elegance Bratton is living out a prayer. “I was in a homeless shelter on my way to joining the Marine Corps, give or take a few years.
I didn’t even necessarily understand exactly what I was praying for,” Bratton tells Variety, thinking back to 20 years ago. “I had gotten the job title Combat Camera, which was the first job title I ever had that sounded cool —most times it’s like, I’m the shift supervisor at whatever — so I was just praying that this could mean something more,” he continues. “I wanted it to change my life and it really did.” While Bratton chats over Zoom, he’s preparing for his film to close the 60th New York Film Festival on Saturday night in a “homecoming” gala screening for the self-described “New York artist,” who cut his teeth working as a club photographer before directing the Independent Spirit Award-winning documentary “Pier Kids.” “At every stage of my career growth, I’ve come back to New York and advanced to the next level,” he says on his film’s selection at NYFF. “It doesn’t get any better than this.” But this moment isn’t exactly a fairy tale.
Beyond the usual challenges for a filmmaker making their first long-form narrative feature — much less one amid a pandemic in the middle of a Mississippi summer — “The Inspection” tells the semi-autobiographical story of Bratton’s journey from a young man, homeless since 16 when his mother cast him from her home for being gay, to training for the Marine Corps under the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” edict.
Jeremy Pope stars as Ellis French, while Gabrielle Union plays Inez, characters inspired by Bratton and his mother, Inell. “I made this movie about a young man who goes through a grueling
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