January 2, 2026
by Carla Hay
Directed by Andre Gaines
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the dramatic film “The Dutchman” (based on the 1963 off-Broadway play “The Dutchman and the Slave”) features a predominantly African American cast of characters (with some white people and a few Asian people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A husband, who is upset over his wife having an extramarital fling, decides to have a fling of his own with a woman he meets on a subway, but his fling becomes a nuisance who uses racism to inflict emotional terror on him.
Culture Audience: “The Dutchman” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the play on which the movie is based, and stories that have more of an underdeveloped concept than a coherent plot.
“The Dutchman” is an incoherent fever dream that doesn’t do justice to “The Dutchman and the Slave” play. Movie characters yelling and complaining about racism and infidelity don’t automatically turn this rambling mess into a good cinematic adaptation. Expect to see a lot of scenes in “The Dutchman” showing people talking a lot but not having much that’s meaningful to say. The movie also blurs the lines between fantasy and reality to irritating levels, by using the fantasy elements as an excuse for flimsy storytelling.
Directed by Andre Gaines (who co-wrote “The Dutchman” screenplay with Qasim Basir), “The Dutchman” had its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival. The movie is based on Amiri Baraka’s 1963 off-Broadway play “The Dutchman and the Slave.” “The Dutchman” takes place in New York City, where the movie was filmed on location.
“The Dutchman” begins by showing spouses Clay (played by André Holland) and Kaya (played by Zazie Beetz) in a tension-filled couple’s counseling session with their therapist Dr. Amiri (played by Stephen McKinley Henderson), who is soon revealed to represent Amiri Baraka. Clay and Kaya have hit a rough patch in their marriage because Kaya thinks Clay doesn’t communicate with her enough, while Clay has lost trust in Kaya because she recently had an extramarital fling.
Kaya is remorseful about this infidelity and wants to stay in the marriage. During the therapy session, she tries to deflect how much this affair hurt Clay. Kaya gives this explanation for why Clay is being irritable during this session: “Clay’s been in a lot of stress because of work and this fundraiser he’s hosting for his friend Warren’s re-election.”
In the play “The Dutchman and the Slave,” the character of Clay is a 20-year-old man who is college-educated and who wants to be a poet. In the movie “The Dutchman,” Clay is 42 years old and a highly educated businessman (it’s mentioned that he’s a graduate of Harvard University), but the movie keeps it vague on what type of business Clay does for work. Clay is such a thinly written character, by the end of the movie, viewers won’t know what his interests are at all, except to gripe about his marriage and talk about how hard it is for him to be a black man in society.
During the therapy session, Clay says to Kaya about how her infidelity has affected him: “You already know what I’m going through with people at work and in our community—being not black enough for one group and too black for the other. I’m already struggling to find balance.”
One of the many problems with “The Dutchman” is Clay is never seen going through this type of struggle. He only talks about it. The movie doesn’t show Clay at work or interacting with people in his “community.” It never shows Clay having to “code switch” to “find balance” in the places where he says he’s “not black enough” or “too black.”
The only social event that Clay is seen at is later in the movie, at the aforementioned fundraiser for his politician friend Warren Enright (played by Aldis Hodge), which looks like a racially diverse gathering of society elites who can afford to attend this type of fundraiser. (The movie doesn’t reveal the political job for which Warren is seeking re-election.) Clay is so well-respected at this gathering, he’s asked to give a speech. Where’s the struggle?
In the couple’s counseling session that’s shown in the beginning of the movie, Clay is openly frustrated that Dr. Amiri seems to be siding with Kaya. Dr. Amiri asks Clay if it would make Clay feel better if Clay had an extramarital fling. Clay doesn’t answer. Viewers will notice this annoying habit that Clay has of complaining and blaming but not doing much to solve problems. In fact, he makes such bad decisions, he makes his problems worse for himself.
At the end of the therapy session, Dr. Amiri recommends that Clay read the published book of “The Dutchman” play. Once it becomes apparent in the movie that someone named Amiri Baraka wrote this play, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Dr. Amiri is hawking his own book. It turns into shameless shilling during the course of this sloppily written movie.
Dr. Amiri tells Clay why he needs to read “The Dutchman,” which is about a black man whose life is turned upside down after he has an extramarital fling with a mysterious white woman whom he meets on a subway. Dr. Amiri tells Clay: “Sometimes, we find pieces of ourselves in literature that help us heal. Do you see yourself on that train, Clay? Trapped between who you are and who you must be?”
Clay is about to find out. Faster than you can say “terrible movie adaptation,” Clay is sitting by himself on a subway when he is approached by a frequently smirking 39-year-old woman named Lula (played by Kate Mara), who says hello to Clay when she sits down next to him. During the course of their conversation, Lula flirts with Clay, she gets confrontational with him, and she comes right out and says she wants to have sex with him. Clay tells Lula that he’s married, but she doesn’t care.
Lula says to Clay, “I know what you’re thinking. You think I want to pick you up, get you to take me somewhere, and fuck.” Clay tries to tell her that he’s not a fool, by saying, “Do I look like a sucker to you?” Lula replies, “You look like you’re trying to grow a beard.” Someone needs to tells Lula that Clay already has a beard on his face.
The movie is not subtle at all with trying to make biblical references to Adam and Eve. At one point in this idiotic conversation on the subway, Lula literally takes out a red apple and hands it to Clay. Later, to ramp up her “seduction,” Lula (who’s wearing a low-cut short dress) takes off her underwear in front of Clay.
The back-and-forth banter continues when Lula and Clay exit at the same subway stop. On the subway platform, Clay sees a woman (played by Sally Stewart), who has fallen down and dropped her belongings all over the platform. Clay rushes over to help the woman to her feet and help her gather her belongings. One of the items the woman has dropped is her cell phone, which will have significance later in the story.
As predicted in the book that Dr. Amiri gave to Clay, Clay has sex with Lula when they go back to her place. Clay wants to treat this sexual encounter as a one-night stand. However, Lula (like a “Fatal Attraction” jilted mistress) becomes obsessed with continuing to see Clay. (This isn’t spoiler information because it’s shown in “The Dutchman” trailer.)
One of the things that Lula does when she hounds and stalks Clay is insist that he take her as his date to Warren’s fundraising party. The more time that Lula spends with Clay, the more aggressive, racist, and unhinged she becomes. One of the more racially offensive that Lula says to Clay is: “Do you know if your great-grandfather was a slave? He definitely didn’t go to Harvard.”
At one point during an argument that Lula instigates with Clay, she shows Clay that she kept the used condom from their sexual encounter, and she threatens to accuse Clay of rape unless he takes her to the fundraising event. Clay and Lula both know that Kaya is also going to be at this fundraiser. And you can easily predict that nothing good can come out of this situation.
“The Dutchman” fumbles when trying to make weighty statements about how black men are under constant threat of either being falsely accused of crimes and/or being unfairly perceived as most likely to commit crimes. As an intimidation tactic to make Clay afraid, Lula sometimes screams in public when she’s with Clay because she knows that a white woman screaming when she’s with a black man will automatically make some people think she’s a victim being harmed by a black man. These are harsh racist realities that are clumsily handled in the film, which repeats these types of racist scenarios without anything significant to add.
Meanwhile, Dr. Amiri comes in and out of the story like a magical “know it all” genie who tries to act like his “Dutchman” book/play is some kind of survival guide for black men in America. There’s some nonsense about Dr. Amiri controlling Clay through a small figurine that Dr. Amiri keeps in his office. And the movie gets violent in a melodramatic confrontation scene that looks like it could be in the type of low-quality junk movie that gets dumped on a trashy streaming service.
“The Dutchman” has very talented cast members doing sufficient work with the weak material that they’ve been given. Unfortunately, all of the movie’s principal characters don’t come across as real people but as figments of the imagination of a pretentious and uncreative writer. Ultimately, “The Dutchman” is a redundant, dull and mostly pointless movie that misses many opportunities to be an impactful film. Instead of giving meaningful insight into relationships that involve sexual intimacy and racial identities, “The Dutchman” is just a scattered regurgitation of provocative themes that have been handled much better in other movies, such as Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever” and Jordan Peele’s “Get Out.”
Inaugural Entertainment released “The Dutchman” in select U.S. cinemas on January 2, 2026.
