Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal on <em>Blindspotting</em> and the Power of Poetry

This story contains some spoilers for the film Blindspotting.

Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs believe the right words can dress wounds. The Oakland-bred duo, who wrote and co-star in the new movie, Blindspotting, speak of poetry as both craft and balm.

Directed by Carlos López Estrada, Blindspotting is half social drama, half choreopoem. The film follows two lifelong best friends, Collin (Diggs) and Miles (Casal), as they adjust to changes in their immediate lives and in the city that shaped them. Blindspotting’s protagonists have grown alongside one another for years, but the story finds them—and a rapidly gentrifying Oakland—at a crossroads.The film oozes with Bay Area vitality. It booms and rattles. It bounces and bends. Oakland is both backdrop and character.

could have easily dramatized the gore of the violence its characters witness and enact; but it differs from other works that address similar subjects (police brutality, gentrification) in its choice of form. Casal and Diggs, who pull from backgrounds in poetry and music, imbue the film with a distinctly rhythmic cadence. The poetry of their characters’ friendship is a constant refrain. Collin and Miles speak in ciphers; their banter