Queen et Slim

The film was a beautiful yet striking journey and though all of our favorite love stories have definite endings, this one tied two purposes together. The director did a phenomenal job and everyone involved for that matter. This is a film I'm rooting for. Hope it stays in theaters longer than 2 weeks.

Having seen this a few weeks ago, I was a blank slate going into it. Obviously I was familiar with Daniel Kaluuya, from Get Out and Black Panther and had read the film was a first time directorial effort (on this scale) but had no other preconceptions about it.

I was pleasantly surprised by just how accomplished it was. The film looks gorgeous. The cast all deliver on what feels like a fairly loose screenplay in keeping with the indie spirit of the film. Yes some plot points feel a little contrived in order to move the story on but nothing so bad that it derails the film.

The film very much reminds me of Badlands and to a lesser extent True Romance in its dreamier sequences, as the camera does an expert job of capturing the furtive glances and subconscious body language of the two protagonists deepening relationship. This is aided by an excellent soundtrack and the aforementioned top notch cinematography.

Special note to the landscape of Florida itself which as the film moves from the tight, dark confines of the city to the hot, wide open vistas serves as visual metaphor for the journey of the central characters.

It's hard enough (in 2020) to view anything outwith the prism of politics, and even harder with a film that touches on the tragedy of the black experience in modern America for some. If even the user reviews here are anything to go by, those of a caucasian persuasion (as i am) feel aggrieved at how white cops are portrayed. Forgetting that there are many incidents of "malpractice" every week and that this is a movie. Also there are plenty of films about honest, good police officers.

I would urge people to watch the film and see this is not the central point of the film. Nor does it make any strong judgement call one way or another. It simply uses what is a tragically all too common occurrence to light the spark of the story. Then holds up a lens to how that type of incident could play out. No real grandstanding, more a welcome subversion of the fugitive /romance genre from a different perspective.

It's a film that doesn't force its message or feel it has to show black people railing against injustice or overt oppression and overcoming all the odds. It just shows two people on the run, trying to survive.

As Slim says in one of the film's many great lines. "Why do black people have to be excellent, why can't we just be ourselves".

So well made a movie. Very engaging from the first frame till the end. Fantastic performances by both the protagonists and yes brilliant direction and script. Photography is marvellous too. All in all an Oscar deserving movie.

Must watch. Not a slick Hollywood production with all the cliches but very good. This movie made me a bit melancholic and also grateful for living in North Europe.

"Queen & Slim" is I think the perfect example of a movie that's greater than the sum of its parts.

There are many individual moments in the film that don't hold up under scrutiny. But when experienced as a whole, the film exerts a kind of poetic power. It's equal parts sorrow and rage at the treatment of African Americans in the United States, and having watched it after the George Floyd murder (even though the film came out before it), it's impossible not to understand the actions and motivations of the Bonnie and Clyde couple at the film's center.

It's certainly overheated and histrionic at times, but these are overheated and histrionic moments we're experiencing in our country right now, and I don't want movies, especially movies about race, to play it safe. I want them to be angry, to scream and shout and swear, to have muscle and teeth, and so the energy blazing off the screen from this movie felt right for the moment.

My favorite scene is the one where Slim comments on how beautiful the countryside of rural America is as they're driving through it, and Queen, who casually glances at a prison work gang in a field made up of all black men that could easily pass for a group of field slaves from the Civil War-era South, replies, "Is it?"

Grade: A-