Written by Rick Chafe and Danny Schur
Directed by Robert Adetuyi
Starring Marshall Williams, Laura Slade Wiggins, Gregg Henry, Lisa Bell and Haley Sales
Running time: 1 hour and 50 minutes
MPAA rating: PG

by Jenny Swadosh

A confession: I admit that, despite my pretenses of worldliness, I am such a parochial American that, upon encountering publicity for Stand!, I incorrectly assumed the events upon which the historical musical is based occurred in New York City and I had somehow failed to take note of them, despite recently completing a year-long project on the year 1919 in the United States. It was only after realizing that several of the stars are alumni of Canadian Idol and that writer Danny Schur is based in Winnipeg, did it dawn on me that perhaps this film is set in our Neighbor to the North. The Canadian Encyclopedia entry on the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 clarified the rest. I stand humbled before you, Canada. 

Stand! primarily revolves around a father and son, Mike and Stefan Sokolowski, who arrive in Winnipeg in 1919, looking for manual labor opportunities following their release from an internment camp. We learn that they fled Ukraine to avoid military inscription (as a Ukrainian American, I actually did know that Canada is home to the world’s largest population of Ukrainians after Ukraine and Russia) and that Mike (Gregg Henry) is illiterate, depending on the dutiful Stefan (Marshall Williams) to read and write for him. Shortly after moving into their tenement room, the Sokolowskis encounter neighbor Rebecca Almazoff (Laura Slade Wiggins), a spitfire Jewish revolutionary who lives with her journalist brother Moishe, a character based on the real life Yiddish press journalist Solomon Pearl. It’s love at first sight for Stefan and Rebecca, but Mike and Moishe (Tristan Carlucci) think the romance can come to no good. A courtship transpires against the background and foreground of labor organizing, xenophobia and violent tensions between immigrants and recently returned veterans who expect to have their old jobs back as a reward for their military service. 

Mike Sokolowski was also a real person, although we know little about him except for one detail which it would be a spoiler to divulge in this review. In 2002, playwright Danny Schur found his name in a history of the Winnipeg General Strike and began writing a musical drama based on his imagining of this “Ukrainian Canadian everyman.” Although Stand! bills itself as a “Romeo and Juliet” romance and our attention is continuously directed to Rebecca and Stefan’s ups and downs, Mike is a far more interesting character. To Schur, Henry and director Richard Adetuyi’s collective credits, we do sympathize with Mike when he tries to curtail the blossoming romance. Mike’s motivations are painful and pure, and when he betrays his son, we know he does so because he is scarred by experience and sees no other possibility of accomplishing his single goal in life: to reunite his family in Canada, a goal that is continuously just a few, humiliating dollars out of reach. 

A relationship I found more compelling in its possibilities than the romance between Stefan and Rebecca is the deteriorating friendship between two war buddies, Gabriel and Davey. Gabriel (Gabriel Daniels), a Métis, quickly realizes that his military sacrifices mean little in terms of his treatment back home. As Mike betrays Stefan, Gabriel must betray Davey, who becomes increasingly violent and MAGA-like. I wish Gabriel had been developed from a token who delivers a few good lines into a more central character. Even Davey is somewhat sympathetic as we are given to understand how he is manipulated into believing “alien scum” are responsible for his unemployment and frustration. 

Apart from Henry, the star of Stand! is Lisa Bell, who plays the widowed maid Emma (no last name), employed by the film’s only truly villainous character, A.J. Anderson, a wealthy lawyer determined to crush the labor movement and his wife’s spirit along with it. Emma is an African American refugee from the United States (Oklahoma, more precisely), seeking freedom from the threat of lynching. In her first starring role in a feature film, Bell is electrifying to watch and to hear, both when she’s singing and when she’s acting, even as a secondary character. She unintentionally steals every scene she appears in. Director Adetuyi is responsible for the creation of this character and Emma’s song, “Stand!,” which became the name of the musical in cinematic form. Schur’s original 2005 play is titled Strike! and in it Emma is Irish. I would trade some of Rebecca and Stefan’s time on screen for more of Emma’s. 

Stands!’s production design is exemplary and remains true to the spirit of theater, rather than aspiring for the realism afforded by film. The sets are clean and spare, and the costumes, while far from historically accurate, easily communicate visual information about the characters. I was astonished to learn that rather than being filmed on a studio lot, as I originally assumed, Stand! was shot on location in Winnipeg, in some cases in the same place as the events of the 1919 General Strike. In the final scenes, viewers are shown archival images of the strike, which heightened my self-reproach. How could I have remained ignorant of a labor action of this scale?

I’m disappointed to say that the songs are not quite on par with my all-time favorite proletariat musical, Philadelphia-native Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock (1937). Although the theme song is catchy, Stand! doesn’t deliver such classics as “Joe Worker” or “Nickel Under the Foot.” Also, there are many missed opportunities for musical numbers to move the narrative forward -- or intentionally disrupt it in the vein of Bertholt Brecht-Kurt Weill collaborations. For example, the meeting of business leaders to strategize strikebreaking could easily have been sung, a decision that is pulled off effectively for the confrontation between Anderson and labor organizer Helen Armstrong (Haley Sales). I tried to find information about musical numbers in the original play, and it seems that a number of fan favorites were omitted from the film adaptation. However, as compensation, we are treated to beautifully choreographed scenes of walkouts, marches and shop floor votes. Director Adetuyi is often referred to as “a specialist in the urban dance musical genre” (mostly notably as screenwriter for Stomp the Yard) and, under his direction, it is clear that people taking to the streets in collective resistance is a form of dance. 

Overall, Stand! satisfyingly delivers the contemporary message that workers of diverse ethnic groups and nationalities must unite against common enemies and that racism and xenobia are sown by those seeking to divide movements. It shows 21st century audiences what early 20th century solidarity looked like. Also, I cried at the end, which is the catharsis that all musical dramas must elicit. However, my overwhelming feeling as the credits rolled was an urgent desire to pop my Threepenny Opera soundtrack into the CD player. I wish Stand! dared to be as radical as the Winnipeggers of 1919 whose lives it depicts. By focusing so much of our attention on the romantic arc of two people, we lose sight of the collective story that deserves greater exposure.

Stand! Opens in U.S. theaters on December 1. Find locations here.