The title character of “Luce” is introduced as a star student and first-rate apple polisher. Speaking to a school auditorium, he lavishes praise on parents and teachers, who surely love to hear it.

But Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) may have an incendiary side. His history and government teacher, Ms. Wilson (Octavia Spencer), summons his mother (Naomi Watts) to discuss a paper he wrote. The assignment was to adopt the voice of a historical figure. Luce chose Frantz Fanon, which, in itself, might be another sign of precocity. “The Wretched of the Earth” isn’t regular high school reading, after all, and if other students could write as Fidel Castro, why not Fanon?

But given that Luce was adopted, and spent his early childhood learning to a shoot a gun in strife-riven Eritrea, and that he has parroted Fanon’s views on violence during a time of vigilance around violence in schools, Ms. Wilson felt compelled to search his locker. Whether that incursion should be seen as legally justified gets debated in another scene.