Weaving a lyrical ‘Beale Street’
Life often gets in the way of love for characters in filmmaker Barry Jenkins’ works, and in his new period drama “If Beale Street Could Talk,” the core romance of two soulmates feels more earned because of those obstacles.
Jenkins adapted the 1974 James Baldwin novel as a follow-up to his 2016 masterpiece, “Moonlight.” While not as innovative or captivating, “Beale Street” ( ★★★☆; rated R; opens in New York and L.A. Friday, expands nationwide Dec. 25), a 1970s-set Harlem love story fraught with injustice, is nevertheless affecting and filled with hope.
Close friends since childhood, 19year-old Tish (newcomer KiKi Layne) and her artist fiancé, Fonny (Stephan James), have taken their platonic love to a new level, but Tish learns she’s pregnant as Fonny sits in prison, wrongfully accused of raping a woman (Emily Rios) after being framed by an unscrupulous cop (Ed Skrein).
Tish consoles him at visits as the film bounces between flashbacks of their burgeoning love and the present, when Tish and her loving parents, Sharon (Regina King) and Joseph (Colman Domingo), are committed to freeing Fonny. Tish’s family, which welcomes the prospect of a new life, is seen in stark contrast to Fonny’s, especially his mother (Aunjanue Ellis). The devoutly religious woman recoils at the baby news yet doesn’t seem that interested in helping her son.
Jenkins uses those contrasts effectively in his work, which again is marked by a strong expressionistic style: Fonny is seen in jail scenes, his talents seemingly wasting away, but also in earlier times working on a sculpture in his basement apartment, with the camera orbiting the artist as smoke gives him an ethereal aura. The scenes come alive even more thanks to Nicholas Britell’s gorgeous score
The cast is superb, especially King. She is heartfelt and impassioned as a mom who’s completely devoted to her youngest daughter and her future sonin-law, traveling to Puerto Rico to find out the truth after the rape victim flees to her homeland. Domingo and Teyonah Parris (as Sharon and Joseph’s oldest child Ernestine) add flames to that family’s emotional fire.
Layne and James are great together in the pre-prison scenes, though there’s a connection missing between them – likely by design – when they’re divided by industrial glass. James also shares a noteworthy chemistry with Brian Tyree Henry: Just as terrific here as in “Widows,” Henry plays Fonny’s recently jailed friend Daniel, who gets a
weighty, moving monologue in a flashback warning Fonny not to wind up in prison like he did. “I found out in the slammer ... the white man has got to be the devil,” Daniel says. “Because he sure ain’t a man.”
The profound speech finds both men considering what it’s like to be black in America, in a thematic undercurrent with timely resonance that Jenkins returns to often. He fills the screen with various degrees of love and caring between individuals, but also weaves in vintage photos of police violence and black men being brutalized, so you never forget the pain and sacrifice.
Jenkins is one of Hollywood’s most lyrical filmmak- ers, and it’s sometimes just the simplest choices that mean the most: In the opening scene, as Tish and Fonny are on a lovers’ walk, Jenkins frames each in closeup, staring directly at the viewer as you, in turn, look into their souls. And throughout their arduous journey to come, Jenkins never lets go of his romantic spirit.