The acting, the scenes, and drama are excellent in this film. The problem?: The movie is not designed for a younger generation to understand the historical significant context of this time period. Watch this movie with anyone young or with little knowledge of the Civil Rights movement and they will not understand what the movie is truly about. Simply ask them, why are they marching? What are they trying to achieve? They won't know the answer because the film was not designed to educate, but rather retell a vivid powerful story to an audience that either lived or understood such an era.
What this Hollywood film (as many others) needed to embrace is that if you're going to make a film as important as the context of this period of history, create the film in a way that you can teach it in decades to come. The films "Glory", "Schindler's list", "Malcolm X" and "Amistad" are a perfect examples of films that stay close to the historical context, make it engaging, and still educate any generation that watches it today and in the future. Selma will not be embraced the same way because the audience they aimed for (not younger generations)