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Clay, the lead character in “The Dutchman,” is having a hellish night in New York City, the kind of night that could end his life or change it in gravely material ways. One person he encounters advises him to “heed the warnings of those before you, so your fate can be different.” And thus this adaptation of Amiri Baraka’s celebrated 1964 play, “Dutchman,” about race and Black identity, announces its intention to offer an alternate, updated interpretation of a seminal text. The film adds modern references and takes place in the present, but its treatment of the play’s themes remains murky and marred by an inability to let go of what director Andre Gaines evidently considers to be a sacred text.
The adaptation, which Gaines wrote with Qasim Basir, begins in a marriage therapy session. Clay (André Holland), a successful Black businessman, is trying to understand why his wife Kaya (Zazie Beetz) cheated on him, though he seems defensive and unable to open up emotionally. The therapist (Stephen McKinley Henderson) urges him to listen to his wife. Despite the palpable tension between the spouses, their commitment and love is apparent. They are not on their way to separation, but perhaps to a greater understanding of one another’s needs.
On his way to a Harlem fundraiser for a friend running for office (Aldis Hodge), Clay encounters a strange white woman on the train. From the moment she sets her eyes on him, Lula (Kate Mara) seems determined to shock, seduce, taunt and repel Clay. One minute, she invites him to her bed, and the next, she’s threatening to call “rape.” She insists on accompanying him to the party where she’s determined to cause a ruckus and upend his relationships with his wife, friends and community. What is driving her fixation on Clay is never explained.
In Baraka’s play, Clay and Lula serve as allegorical representations of Black assimilation and white supremacy, respectively. Written and performed at the height of the Civil Rights movement, “Dutchman” was audacious and ahead of its time. Its provocative themes and the visceral ways in which it dealt with them challenged audiences. In trying to open it up for a 2026 audience, Gaines and Basir add dimension to Clay, while leaving Lula little more than a mechanism of confrontation. That imbalance — one main character rendered flesh and blood while the other never comes to life — hinders the central narrative of the film.
The play takes place on a subway train, and though that remains a pivotal setting, Gaines’ opens up the drama, situating Clay and Lula within a broader social landscape, reinforcing the idea that their encounter is not isolated but embedded in the violence of New York City. His framing of their scenes together, whether on the train, in her apartment or within a large party full of people, allows the actors to play well off each other.
Strangely, “Dutchman” is overtly referenced multiple times in the script. Clay is given a printed version of the play by his therapist early on. He is shown a miniature version of a theater where his “character” appears as a small toy to be manipulated. He catches a glimpse of a TV production playing on the display window of an electronics store as he’s walking around with Lula.
Henderson plays several roles and keeps appearing as specter throughout the proceedings to comment and call back to the play. His character is sometimes referred to as Amiri and quotes directly from the play and from other well-known texts about American Black identity. This meta incorporation of the play adds a sense of déjà vu to the film, suggesting that what’s happening to Clay could be a rite of passage that every Black man must face in this country.
Gaines and Basir’s adaptation adheres to the play’s intellectual origins. However, they never manage to make the story emotional, maintaining its themes without modernizing them. Perhaps that’s the point: Contemporary African American men must constantly deal with their identities and the way white society sees them. If the reason for this adaptation is to continue that conversation for a new generation, then they have succeeded.
Holland brings vivid shading to a role written as a symbol of his race and nationality, making him the main reason to watch this adaptation. He’s immediately believable as a man in love who is also hurting, as a man with desires he’d rather not acknowledge, and as an ambitious person who believes he deserves his success — all themes that the text hints at, and which Holland bring to life while matching intensity with vulnerability. In his last monologue, he adds notes of sarcasm to cover the righteous anger his character feels, giving the film the explosive ending it has been building toward, even it didn’t quite earn it.
“The Dutchman” exists in a tense space between reverence and reinvention. It is an adaptation so aware of the power and legacy of Baraka’s text that it never fully trusts its own instincts. The result is a film that provokes thought more than feeling, one that invites discussion, while denying audiences the emotional dimension that might have driven home its relevance.
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Murtada Elfadl
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