If Beale Street Could Talk 

Writer & Director: Barry Jenkins 

Moonlight winning the Best Picture Oscar in 2017 was supposed to be a watershed moment in which the dusty Academy threw off its white, middle-aged shackles and begin to acknowledge and reward the wonderous diversity that is much of modern cinema. And that idea was proved right and now we can no longer imagine a time in which a person of colour or a woman will not win the major awards.  

HA! Just kidding! You can use your Green Book to guide you all the way down Reductive Avenue. Green Book’s win was an inevitable, insipid choice made all the more galling by the admission of Barry Jenkin’s latest film, If Beale Street Could Talk from the nominations. Based on the novel of the same name by James Baldwin, Beale Street is a heart-breaking romance set amongst a racially charged 1970s time period. We follow the lives of Tish (Kiki Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James) as they come to terms with becoming expectant parents as Fonny languishes in prison for a crime he did not commit.  

The narrative is non-linear, switching between now and then with graceful deft, as we sweep between the present of the Tish’s pregnancy and the past of their blossoming love. Jenkins is shaping up to be a master storyteller; someone who weaves intense, serious political ideas through the lives perfectly crafted characters. Fonny is imprisoned after being accused of the rape of Victoria (Emily Rios), he is falsely accused and framed by a racist police officer who had a previous vendetta against him. This is perhaps Beale Street’s greatest accomplishment; we know from the outset that Fonny has been falsely accused and the films’ narrative is funneled through Tish and her family’s attempt to clear his name. But it never, for a single frame, lessens or trivializes the crime against Victoria. Her pain, the gaping schism caused by the attack is portrayed with frank sensitivity. When Tish’s mother Sharon, played to stunning perfection by Regina King, goes to visit Victoria in attempt for her to convince that it was not Fonny who committed the crime, she tells her with a brutal, understated knowing; ‘I’m a woman and I know what women know.’ The film delicately portrays both the endemic sexual violence against women and the institutional bigotry that causes black men to be imprisoned at astonishing rates.  

The love story between Tish and Fonny is gorgeous. It’s pure, sun-drenched cinema love and the glowing, often woozy lighting created by Jenkins and cinematographer James Laxton embody the sensuous connection between the two characters. Jenkins’s visual style also reflects the intensity of the relationship, as the camera seems to always linger on the face of the person not talking in a conversation, and we occupy the position of a besotted lover. The performances from Layne and James are wonderful, they each portray the love and desperation that defines their characters, as their relationship begins to stretch and ultimately nearly crack as the vicious society in which they live becomes ever more tethered to them. Regina King has rightly won plaudits for her performance, as the dignified but grieving Sharon and for those of us who grey watching The Big Bang Theory, it’s all the more remarkable. Nicholas Britel’s score is equally remarkable, a swooning, string laden that shifts, like the film, with ease from romantic to frenzied anger.  

If there was any doubt, with Moonlight and now Beale Street, Barry Jenkins has cemented his place as cinema’s premier storyteller. His unique visual style with its super saturated but not sickly colours and the way he manages to entwine bracing political statements with nuanced character driven stories should leave everybody’s jaws somewhere close to their shoes. The film is tragic, and the ending is a stark reminder that when the American state becomes involved in the lives of black citizens, it will often end with spilt blood or years lost behind metal. If Beale Street Could Talk is glorious nonetheless and two hours spent in the company of Tish and Fonny’s relationship is proof that, in the right hands, romance can be portrayed with a visceral intensity that feels fantastical but utterly human.

10/10