Review by Entertainment News Host, Danielle Jones-Wesley, follow her on Twitter at @DanielleJW
Queen & Slim is a black love story that acknowledges the most personal point of view of police brutality and what it is like to be black in America. The film’s on-the-run elements will remind you of Bonnie and Clyde, with elements you’d find also in a Shakespearean tragedy in the most relevant and grounded way. This movie will make you emote in ways unexpected and root for Queen & Slim for the entire 132 minutes. I recommend.
This feature film debut from Melina Matsoukas is as exciting to watch as it is to look ahead for what is next from this young woman director of color. This is the second prolific partnership between Matsoukas and screenwriter Lena Waithe. Previously they partnered on the “Thanksgiving” episode of Master of None which won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 2018.
The film begins with the characters on a Tinder date. During this date, we learn this couple does not have much in common. Jodie Turner-Smith’s character is an uptight atheist attorney while Daniel Kaluuya is a content retail employee that believes in God. It appears obvious this date will likely be their last.
On their drive home from the diner, the two get pulled over for not signaling at a turn by a vicious police officer. This interaction ends with “Slim” killing the officer in self-defense and “Queen” getting shot in the leg. Instead of staying at the scene, Turner-Smith’s character advises they go on the run and their journey begins.
We have gotten to know Matsouka’s use of imagery with music through her extensive career as a music video director for heavyweight artists like Rihanna, Lady Gaga and most notably Beyoncé. The marriage between the cinematography of Tat Radcliffe and the road-trip playlist is stunning as they drive into the American south. Musically the tunes shift from gospel to funk to trap, a world authentic to the millennial Black American experience and likely the film’s creators.
While on the road, word of their cop-killing begins to spread fast on social media and on the news as police are searching for them. The story gain’s speed quickly as this police officer had gone unpunished for a murder of an unarmed black man not so long ago. The couple’s accidental murder becomes a banner of vindication to Black America and those against police brutality.
Some of the best scenes of Queen & Slim are during their encounters with a few helpful characters as they develop and venture their plan to escape to Cuba.
We meet two of the most colorful characters of the film in New Orleans where Queen and Slim find refuge at the home of her Uncle Earl. Uncle Earl, played by Bokeem Woodbine, is a pimp-veteran suffering from PTSD and we meet his girls. The star appeal of one of his unnamed girls, played by Indya Moore is undeniable (Note: Indya Moore is non-binary and prefers the pronouns they/them). Their portrayal of sex workers offers so much depth and insight into the relationship that a pimp can have with his girlfriends. Although this character, played by Moore, never is given a name, the impact of their scenes linger as Queen is transformed from an attorney with braids to a short-haired stunner in a tight sexy dress and boots. It is also where we begin to see the internal transformation in Queen as she offers to pray at dinner and begins to soften her heart towards the kind-hearted Slim. In New Orleans, their love story begins to flourish.
Besides finding shelter with a white couple, played by Flea and Chloë Sevigny, most of their support comes from other Black Americans. The height of their social life on-the-run takes place at a southern black bar full of two-stepping couples and a band playing the blues. They believe they have gone unnoticed until a bartender provides them free drinks and tells them they are safe here. The couple finds a moment of solace in this bar to recover from their time on the road and they fall deeper in love on the dance floor. The couple cozy up as proclamations of what they are looking for in love are heard in voice-over.
In this voice over, Queen explains she wants someone to love her “scars and bruises” and to “hold her hand and never let go” and Slim says whomever he settles down with “has to be his legacy.” This message of their love echos until the final moments of the film. It is in these scenes that Turner-Smith’s performance becomes the most grounded and dare I say lovable. In Queen’s weakness, Turner-Smith’s performance finds strength. Kaluuya’s performance meets his expectation of greatness in every single scene. He continues to be a solid performer.
There are only a few questionable moments in the film. The most notable is the intense Ferguson-like protest scene of those in support of the movement Queen and Slim have started. This scene ends in a way that feels fruitless to the plot and the actual Black Lives Matter movement but still stuns. This scene is mixed in with the only sex scene in the film, which I was not a fan of. Violence + sex is not my cup of tea. There are also moments in the film I heard members of the audience cheer and jeer. I also heard tears.
After the film, I was silent. We both were. My husband and I are two young black people in America. We felt the love, we felt the violence. The reality had hit us. This story very well could have been us.
Universal Pictures and Makeready’s QUEEN & SLIM is now playing in theaters nationwide
Listen to the Queen & Slim playlist on Spotify: https://queenandslim.lnk.to/playlist
About Queen and Slim
From trailblazing, Emmy-winning writer Lena Waithe (Netflix’s Master of None) and Melina Matsoukas, the visionary director of some of this generation’s most powerful pop-culture experiences, including Beyonce’s “Formation” and the Nike “Equality” campaign, comes Makeready’s unflinching new drama, Queen & Slim.
While on a forgettable first date together in Ohio, a black man (Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya) and a black woman (Jodie Turner-Smith, in her first starring feature-film role), are pulled over for a minor traffic infraction. The situation escalates, with sudden and tragic results, when the man kills the police officer in self-defense. Terrified and in fear for their lives, the man, a retail employee, and the woman, a criminal defense lawyer, are forced to go on the run. But the incident is captured on video and goes viral, and the couple unwittingly become a symbol of trauma, terror, grief and pain for people across the country.
As they drive, these two unlikely fugitives will discover themselves and each other in the most dire and desperate of circumstances and will forge a deep and powerful love that will reveal their shared humanity and shape the rest of their lives.
Joining a legacy of films such as Bonnie and Clyde and Thelma & Louise, Queen & Slim is a powerful, consciousness-raising love story that confronts the staggering human toll of racism and the life-shattering price of violence.
Waithe wrote the script based on an original idea by bestselling author James Frey (A Million Little Pieces, Katerina). The feature-film directorial debut from Melina Matsoukas (executive producer of HBO’s Insecure) stars Academy Award® nominee Daniel Kaluuya as “Slim” and rising star Jodie Turner-Smith (Syfy’s Nightflyers), as “Queen.”
Social
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