Evocative drama on Beale St
The man who eventually won the 2017 Academy Award for best picture proves Moonlight was no fluke with this slow-burning, soulful adaptation of a 1974 novel by American writer James Baldwin.
Although dedicated to the eponymous street in New Orleans, a place Baldwin and the opening of this movie says was ‘‘where my father, Louis Armstrong and jazz was born’’, If Beale Street Could Talk is actually set in New York’s Harlem.
‘‘Every black person born in America was born on Beale St, whether in Jackson, Mississippi, or in Harlem, New York. Beale St is our legacy,’’ the novelist-turnedactivist believed.
At its heart, this Beale Street isa tale of young, star-crossed lovers – Clementine ‘‘Tish’’ Rivers (Kiki Layne, making her big-screen debut) and Alonso ‘‘Fonny’’ Hunt (Selma’s Stephan James).
Friends since childhood, the pair’s burgeoning romance is seemingly stymied by the actions of a single policeman. When Officer Bell (Deadpool’s Ed Skrein) witnesses a scuffle between two men outside a grocery store in a mostly white neighbourhood, he’s convinced Fonny should be the one to accompany him downtown. To his surprise, the store owner vouches for the young black man.
However, when a woman in the neighbourhood is later raped, Bell is quick to testify to seeing Fonny running from the scene of the crime, despite all the circumstantial evidence contradicting that. And now with Fonny behind bars, Tish has to confront a new reality alone – that she is going to have a baby.
Told at a somewhat leisurely pace and with a seeming emphasis on characterisation over drama, If Beale Street Could Talk won’t be for everyone. In a lot of ways it feels like a movie from a bygone era, akin to a tone poem or the kind of film that screams arthouse. But strip away the stylistic flourishes and the result is a familial and political drama that’s dramatically the equal of Lee Daniels’ Precious
or Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit.
Two things help writer-director Jenkins. First, he’s assembled a terrific cast, that also includes Jerry Maguire’s Regina King (who won a Golden Globe and Oscar for her efforts), Diego Luna (Rogue One), Brian Tyree Henry (Widows)
and Dave Franco (The Disaster Artist). Then, there’s Nicholas Britell’s (Moonlight) stylish and evocative score. It draws the viewer into the story and stays long after the credits roll.