Summary
The film opens with a solemn voice-over during the opening credits. A series of abstracted bright lights dissipate to reveal the face of Detective Graham Waters, to whom the voice belongs. The lights are those of an emergency vehicle, as Waters and his coworker, Ria, have just been in a car accident. Waters tells Ria that the people of Los Angeles are so removed from one another in their vehicles that they “crash into each other just to feel something.” Ria dismisses Waters’s comment and exits the vehicle, where she is greeted by Kim Lee, the other driver involved in the crash.
Ria and Kim blame one another for the accident and exchange a series of racially-charged insults. The camera follows Waters as he exits the car moments later. It becomes evident that Waters and Ria experienced the crash en route to a crime scene investigation. Waters speaks to an investigative coworker, who tells him that a “dead kid” is lying in the brush. Waters walks towards the body.
Waters’s face cross-dissolves to reveal the skyline of Los Angeles. The words “Yesterday” appear on screen, indicating that the events that follow have taken place one day before Waters’s crash. Inside a gun store, Farhad, a Persian shop owner, is arguing with his daughter, Dorri, about which bullets he should buy to accompany his recently-purchased revolver. The owner of the gun store, a white man, becomes increasingly frustrated by Farhad’s indecision. He hurls numerous insults at the pair, and at one point he refers to Farhad as “Osama.” After Farhad rebuts, the owner demands that the security guard remove Farhad from the store. Dorri, still inside, asks for the owner to give her either the gun or a full refund. After he gives her the gun, Dorri is insistent on purchasing the bullets “in the red box.”
Anthony and Peter exit a restaurant arguing about how they are incessantly mistreated as black men living in Los Angeles. While walking on the street, the two men pass Jean Cabot and her husband Rick Cabot, the district attorney. Anthony and Peter notice that Mrs. Cabot’s body language changes to fear upon seeing the men, further contributing to Anthony’s frustration. As Mr. and Mrs. Cabot get into their SUV, Anthony and Peter carjack the couple at gunpoint. In the car, Peter places a small statuette of St. Christopher on the dashboard as a good-luck charm.
Outside of a liquor store, a black male has been shot dead while a white male talks to officers. As Ria and Waters approach the scene, they learn that both men involved in the shooting were undercover police officers. Later, more details emerge about the crime—the white officer has been acquitted twice of shooting and killing two other black men. Additionally, $300,000 is discovered in the trunk of the black officer’s car, indicating that he may have been involved in suspicious criminal activities.
The scene cuts to inside the Cabot house. A Latino worker named Daniel Ruiz is changing the home’s locks. In the adjacent room, Rick talks to his political advisors about the racial dynamics of the carjacking. As the District Attorney, Rick is sure that the carjacking will be covered by the press. However, with his reelection approaching, Rick is concerned that the carjacking will result in him “losing the black vote.”
Jean, visibly shaken by the night’s events, interrupts her husband’s discussion. Rick insists that she calm down, and he suggests that she go check on their sleeping child upstairs. Jean becomes increasingly aggravated at Rick’s dismissal, and she suggests that Rick consistently neglects her feelings and their family. Jean demands that the home’s locks be changed once again in the morning, as she fears that Ruiz will give a copy of their keys to one of his “gang banger friends.” After overhearing Jean’s remarks, Ruiz leaves both sets of keys on the kitchen counter.
Analysis
The opening scene establishes the tone for the remainder of the film. Waters’s deep voice cuts through the celestial music and blurred lights, and the aesthetic is reminiscent of a holy or near-death experience. As the image clears to reveal the face of Waters, the viewer watches his solemn expression as he tells his co-passenger that Los Angeles drivers “crash into each other just to feel something.” In this moment, the viewer is first introduced to the theme of “crashing” and its significance throughout the film. Though literal car crashes remain both a visual motif and a guiding action that paces the plot, the viewer comes to understand that “crashing” manifests in various symbolic forms.
As the scene cuts to “yesterday,” the film’s unique narrative structure unfolds. Rather than retelling the story in a clearly linear or purely chronological manner, Haggis chooses to develop each character in a series of brief, interspersed vignettes. In beginning with the film’s closing scene, Haggis symbolically asserts that all actions have consequences. Further, in accordance with the theme of “crashing,” we are prompted to view the episodes as a series of collisions. We are prompted to consider how each character’s story collides and culminates in the film’s closing scene.
The story’s montage-like structure presents the viewer with a unique sense of agency and prompts the audience to ask the following: how do the events in each vignette mirror and/or clash with another? For example, Farhad, a Persian shop owner, is unable to purchase a weapon without being tormented for his ethnicity, while Anthony and Peter ruminate on the nature of microaggressions against black men. Though the two scenes ostensibly seem to introduce entirely different characters and circumstances, a closer look demonstrates that Farhad, Anthony, and Peter are relentlessly reminded of their non-whiteness as they navigate life in Los Angeles.
Anthony and Peter’s decision to rob Mr. and Mrs. Cabot introduces another central theme of the film. Though Mrs. Cabot’s body language changed when passing Anthony and Peter on the street, the viewer is prompted to evaluate the men’s reaction, and, subsequently, their morality. Do Anthony and Peter’s frustrations justify their criminal behavior? Later at her home, Jean, traumatized by her robbery, unfairly suspects Daniel of violating her home security. Mrs. Cabot, fearing for her family’s safety, is unable to reflect upon her previous microaggressions or acknowledge her present behavior. Instead, her anxiety and fear manifest in the form of a race-based attack on an innocent Latino locksmith. Once again, the audience is pushed to ask the same of Mrs. Cabot as they did of Anthony and Peter—are her actions justified, or at least explainable, due to her personal experiences? Even if she is in the wrong, can we empathize with her, and if not, are we guilty of a similar lack of empathy?
As each scene abruptly jumps from one to another, it becomes increasingly evident that Waters’s opening commentary rings true—each character has “lost their sense of touch.” The characters introduced in the film’s opening sequence remain so preoccupied by the hardships that govern their individual lives that they fail to acknowledge how their insecurities, frustrations, and prejudices are displaced upon other vulnerable members of society. As a result of this ubiquitous egocentrism, prejudice becomes a relentless cycle. It is only during moments of collision that each individual is forced to consider their interactions with the people and the city that surrounds them, and, in turn, reflect upon their own behavior.
