Fighting prejudice, but all too neatly
Starring: Aisha Tyler, Raven-Symone, Jason Lewis
On: Lifetime
Time: Tonight, 9-11
Critics are often tempted to review the subject of a movie, rather than the movie itself. Lifetime's ''For One Night," for instance, is based on the true story of Georgia teenager Gerica McCrary, who made headlines in 2002 for her efforts to integrate her hometown prom after 31 years of segregation. What could be bad? It's about racial healing, as well as the sort of personal activism that can change the world. Nice girl, nice strike against hatred.
But [insert sigh here] ''For One Night" has been put together with no imagination, and no subtlety. For a do-good movie, it's pretty bad. Airing tonight at 9, it's as obvious and simplistic as an afterschool special, and way over its head in prime time. And our young heroine, renamed Brianna McCallister for the movie, is such a doggone good kid, and such a relentlessly positive role model, she's almost unbearable. It doesn't help that Raven-Symone plays her with the kind of cheery spunk that can drive viewers into bleak tunnels of cynicism and disbelief.
The real tale of two proms took place in Butler, Ga., which is called Mercier in the movie. When the school stopped sponsoring the prom in the 1970s, local parents and students decided to sponsor two events, one for blacks and one for whites. When the story came out in 2002, the world was shocked, I tell you, shocked that this kind of segregation still existed. And people were inspired -- and, perhaps, some were repulsed -- by McCrary's crusade to stop it.
''For One Night" loosely follows McCrary's scheme to bring her class together. Partly, the movie's Brianna realizes it would be a cost-effective move and that a single prom would allow the students enough money to hire better musical talent. But mostly she sees that many of her classmates are already integrated, even if there's some discomfort about it. And so she starts a campaign that quickly dislodges hidden prejudice in Mercier, both by whites about blacks and vice versa.
The students aren't given distinction in ''For One Night"; they're not much more than either white or black, racist or not. Brianna has personality, as Raven puts on the major cutesy and quotes famous writers, but she's little more than an innocent. Instead, the movie wastes its time on a few adults, particularly Desiree Howard, a New Orleans newspaper reporter played by Aisha Tyler. Visiting her parents in Mercier after taking a professional leave of absence, Howard catches wind of the prom issue and uses it to restart her career. She also revisits old wounds with her father and reconnects with her former high school boyfriend, now a high school teacher played by Jason Lewis (former model and ''Sex and the City" star).
Together over a meal, Tyler and Lewis are Lord and Lady Bland, with no chemistry and Georgia accents that sound like speech impediments.
Why should we care about Howard? Just because she ushered the story into the limelight? ''For One Night" might have found more depth and intricacy if it had zoomed into the lives and confusions of some of the kids. Being a Lifetime movie no longer automatically means being superficial. The channel's recent look at a high school girl pack in ''Odd Girl Out" had enough detail to be more than a children's-book-level story. But this movie is a neatly wrapped message, with not enough flavor inside. It's not required viewing, not even for one night.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. 
