I was
already interested in this movie, but that interest kicked into high gear after
screenwriter Lena Waithe appeared on The
Daily Show talking about all that went into her feature film debut. This
film is both hard-hitting and beautiful, doing everything by extremes in a
truly-gripping way.
They
connected on Tinder. After a rocky first date, he was driving her home when he
was pulled over for “failing to execute a turn signal.” Minutes later, he was
on his knees with a gun pointed at his head. She tried to intervene, the cop
shot at her, and he scuffled with the officer to prevent a more lethal shot.
They grappled, and the officer wound up dead. Now, they’re doing everything
they can to get out of the country. They kept their lives from ending that night,
and they’re not about to let those lives become “property of the state” without
a fight.
So much
amazing stuff in this movie. I love the discourse that immediately surrounds
the pair (we’ll go with the title and call them Queen and Slim,) with people in
the Black community in particular hailing them as the new Black Panthers and
claiming they were avenging an unarmed Black man the officer killed two years
earlier, but when it happened, Queen and Slim weren’t thinking about political
statements or justice, they weren’t looking to start a hashtag. They were just
trying to survive, and for them, their desperate race to the border is an
extension of that, but for the communities they pass through, it all becomes so
much bigger than the two of them.
I also really
love how, while the film gets into both deep social drama and taut suspense,
it’s not unrelentingly bleak, not centured wholly on Black pain and racial
injustice. Instead, having escaped one brush with death and trying to avoid
another (the opening scene reminds us that Ohio is one of the 30 states that
still has the death penalty,) Queen and Slim recognize that they need to grab
small moments when they can, not putting off brief opportunities for joy in the
midst of all the uncertainty and fear.
Daniel
Kaluuya is fantastic as Slim, overwhelmed by all that’s happened and wishing he
could just go home but trying to be decisive and brave. (Side note: it’s wild
to think that I first knew him as Posh Kenneth on Skins. Reminds me of my post about actors I used to think were
mediocre, when it turned out I’d just never seen them in a role that was worth
their time. In the last couple years, Kaluuya has ably demonstrated that same
principle.) I’m not familiar with Jodie Turner-Smith, but she makes an excellent
Queen. She can come across as perfunctory and a little brittle, but she’s been
scarred from seeing what the system does to the people it dehumanizes, and she
throws the full weight of her intellect at the question of their escape.
I won’t
get into the details, but the final scenes are truly affecting. It’s been a
while since the ending of a movie hit me so hard.
Warnings
Strong
thematic elements, violence, sexual content, language (including the N-word,)
and drinking/smoking/drug use.
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