In the timely and terrific “Blindspotting,” screenwriters, stars and best friends Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal explore the dual nature of perceptions, how someone can look at a person or a situation and see something entirely different than what someone else sees.

That is an important of-the-moment theme that plays out everyday in the ever-more-popular and gentrifying Oakland, where the film is set and where Diggs and Casal grew up. But the topic extends well beyond the city’s boundaries. It’s evident every day, as Americans confront blind spots in dealing with race, immigration — and each other.

By honing in on Oakland and showing how thorny this phenomenon can be, “Blindspotting” — one of the best films of 2018 — has taken the pulse of a nation that is often at odds with itself.

From “Blindspotting’s” opening moments, in which we hear a mad symphonic rush of sounds — conversations, cars, music — capturing the dynamic streets and scenes of Oakland past and present — it becomes clear we’re in for a creative and compelling journey by two men who know their subject matter.

The comedy-drama, which wowed viewers as the opening night selection at the Sundance Film Festival this year, bucks genre categorization, making what might have been a traditional bromance about two buds realizing their lives are changing and upending it into an unpredictable, ambitious tale that uses music, comedy, drama and sudden outbursts of violence to explore what life is authentically like here.

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In the characters of Collin and Miles, Diggs and Casal have created three-dimensional Oaklanders confronting different realities and uncertain futures. Collin (Diggs) is on parole after being released from Santa Rita Jail and works with Miles at a moving company. He’s living in a halfway house and has three days left before he clears parole. What happened to land him in prison is revealed later in the film.

The hot-head Miles (Casal) lives with his girlfriend Ashley (Jasmine Cephas Jones) and gripes constantly about hipsters taking over his city. Collin’s greatest challenge is not to get wrapped up into the trouble that Miles gets into. Miles doesn’t entirely understand Collin’s reality.

Meanwhile, Collin remains attracted to his, let’s-keep-this-at-a-distance ex-girlfriend Val (Janina Gavankar), who works with him.

One night when Collin is stopped at a red light in the moving van, he witnesses a cop (Ethan Embergy) shooting to death a black man. It’s an image that haunts him in the days ahead. It’s also a storyline that gets stitched together not always so seamlessly yet is resolved in one of the film’s most dramatic moments. It’s also a high point for Diggs — who won a Tony for “Hamilton” — in this incredible performance.

Both of these characters occasionally tell their story with clarity and honesty through hip-hop and spoken-word exchanges. In interplay between both actors; there’s a natural ebb and flow to the performances that make both actors worthy of awards consideration.

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In his first feature film, director Carlos Lopez Estrada has made a vibrant film, one popping with ideas and ideals as it presents a vivid and complicated Oakland. Estrada displays assuredness and energy in key hip-hop-inspired scenes.

“Blindspotting” follows on the heels of “Sorry to Bother You,” another bold, fresh Oakland movie. And while they stylistically quite different, they share a bond beside the fact that they showcase Oakland, — they’re two of the most creative and alive pieces of filmmaking of 2018.

Way to go, Oakland.

Randy Myers is a freelance correspondent covering film and is the president of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle.

‘BLINDSPOTTING’

3.5 stars out of 4

Rated: R (language, some violence, sexual references, drug use)

Cast: Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, Janina Gavankar, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Ethan Embry

Director: Carlos López Estrada

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes