If Beale Street Could Talk: Love Can't Conquer Racism

Thanks to the score by Nicholas Britell and the deft screenplay and direction by Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk is one of those movies I watched with a perpetual lump in my throat. Beautiful, romantic, and terrifically sad, this is a film that immerses you completely in its characters and forces you to live their experience. When you leave the theater, you still won’t have left Beale Street.

The movie tells the story of Tish (KiKi Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James), two young lovers who are trying to build a life for themselves in 1970s Harlem. Unfortunately, you know right off the bat that things don't go right for them as the film follows a staggered narrative. Therefore, you know Fonny is now in jail, and you will need to contend with that as you revisit how he and Tish fell in love and what she's going to do when she discovers she is pregnant, while he has been wrongfully imprisoned.

Adapted from James Baldwin's searing novel, the movie conveys Baldwin's outrage and despair, with Tish's narration often quoting the novel verbatim. At times, this took me out of the film - Baldwin has a very distinctive voice, and I knew these were his words, not Tish's. But he still spoke the truth. This is a story about how racism infests every single aspect of this young couple's life, and as the opening title card notes, this isn't an individual story. This is a story happening all over America. Despite being set in the 1970s, it is heartbreaking to see how much of this still holds true in 2018, with white police officers falsely accusing black men of crimes, and minorities being pitted against each other to fight for whatever scraps of dignity they can get. Those who are poor try to make their way up, but the system is so inherently rigged against them that the only joy of this movie is watching the love between Tish and Fonny that blooms like a beautiful flower amidst the ugliness around them.

When a character speaks in this movie, they are almost always in the center of the frame, directly addressing the camera. Therefore, when Tish is talking to Fonny, it feels like she is talking to you. This is such a simple but brilliant way to immediately draw the audience into the story and make them feel like a part of this world. And these actors, though newcomers, are going to be household names. Layne and James deliver soul-captivating performances, wringing your heart out as their eyes burn with love and then gradually dim with the realization that life is always going to be unfair. Regina King delivers a knockout supporting performance as Tish's mother, a woman who stands by her daughter and future son-in-law in every harrowing circumstance. Colman Domingo is similarly wonderful as Tish's father, a man who has used every means necessary to support his family and will continue doing so for as long as he needs to.

If Beale Street Could Talk is a mood piece, much like Jenkins' previous masterpiece, Moonlight. There are no hurried takes; the characters have all the time in the world to have long conversations, exchange longing glances, and show you what it's like to be a black woman or man in America. Whether it's housing discrimination, police brutality, or sexual harassment, minorities get the short end of the stick, and often their only hope is to look out for each other. The only good white person in this whole story is the lawyer that Tish finds to help Fonny and even he quickly discovers that helping a black man means he will be ostracized by the establishment. As the movie ends, it becomes clear that this relentless cycle of racism couldn't be broken in the 1970s, and it sure doesn't feel like we have broken it in 2018. But perhaps one small victory we can point to is the presence of filmmakers like Jenkins who can now shine the spotlight on these stories.

The Favourite: Ladies In Waiting

From the minute I saw the trailer for The Favourite, I knew this was a movie I would relish. Starring the holy trinity of Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone, and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, this is a cinematic slam dunk. Throw in the fact that it's a periodic piece with gorgeous production design and snappy dialogue courtesy of writers Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, and this is two hours well spent at the cinema.

The movie is set in 1708 England during the reign of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). A rather petulant and disinterested monarch, Anne has little interest in running the country and happily leaves the matters of governing and determining the course of the war with France to her right-hand woman, Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz). Sarah wields incredible political power and has the Queen's affections (which are more than just platonic), but she is also bracingly honest and refuses to be a toady. She tells the Queen if her make-up makes her look like a badger but will also take care of her when she has a severe attack of the gout. It's a bizarre relationship that gets strained when Abigail Hill (Emma Stone), a distant cousin of Sarah's, arrives looking for employment.

Do not be fooled by the pretty and poverty-stricken Abigail. She has had a miserable life after her father lost her in a game of cards to a German when she was 15 years old (yes, let that sink in) and when she arrives at the palace, she is bullied by the other staff, as well as Sarah. However, desperate to restore her status as a lady, Abigail starts to play a clever game, currying favour with Queen Anne and eventually setting her sights on replacing Sarah as the Queen's favourite. Watching how she goes about it is a masterclass in manipulation and it's rather wonderful to experience how you go from feeling sorry for Abigail, to rooting for her, to suddenly being horrified at her villainy. Sarah might be rude and demanding, but at least she does that to your face instead of in the shadows.

Olivia Colman is brilliant, playing a depressive queen who does still occasionally remember the enormous power she wields and can throw an epic tantrum. Rachel Weisz is a stylish and no-nonsense power broker who can handle war strategy and palace finances without blinking an eye. And Emma Stone is a ruthless mastermind, determined to make her way to the top but still naive enough to make mistakes along the way. All three actresses greatly benefit from Lanthimos' penchant for close-ups: they have incredibly expressive faces that can convey about 5 pages of storyline without a line of dialogue.

The dialogue is a sheer delight, full of barbed sarcasm and quintessential English dryness. It's not for everyone, but it sure was for me. And the music is eerie, with Psycho-esque strings in the background to remind you that as hilarious as some of the antics on screen may be, this is very much the story of a struggle for power with incredibly high stakes, and you shouldn't be lulled into a false of security. Lanthimos is fond of a fisheye lens and strange angles that can throw you off balance and remind you that all is not quite right in this palace. And at times he superimposes images of the three women on each other, as a reminder of how interconnected their lives have become and what a challenge it will be to untangle this mess.

Filmed at Hatfield House and Hampton Court Palace, this movie is utterly sumptuous and dripping with historical eye candy. Featuring the work of costume designer Sandy Powell (who also did Mary Poppins Returns - this woman is out to get ALL the awards this year), there are a lot of black-and-white outfits with intricate lacy designs that are geometric gorgeousness. This Vogue article elaborates in much more detail if you want to go down a rabbit hole. On the flipside, the men are foppish nightmares, bedecked in elaborate wigs, layers of face paint, and ever-increasing moles. The palace is rife with bored aristocrats engaged in insane pursuits like racing ducks or pelting naked men with oranges, while the main trio of women are essentially running the country.

The Favourite was my favourite for many reasons, but emphatically because it features three incredible female acting performances. This is still such a rarity in cinema, and to see three women at the top of their game have the chance to shine was a pure delight. The men really are supporting characters in this film, with very little to do but go along with the women's orders, and get manipulated any time they think they are in charge. Instead, it's the three ladies who get to banter with caustic sarcasm and prove that, who run the world? Girls.  

Mary Poppins Returns: Practically Perfect In Every Way

We all know 2018 has been a rough year. So what better way to end it than with a spoonful of sugar? Starring the bewitchingly delightful Emily Blunt as our favorite nanny, Mary Poppins Returns is everything you need to sit up and smile for a solid two hours. I should know - I went with my friend, Lynsey, who spent the entire film literally squealing with delight.

In this sequel, Mary Poppins returns to help the children of the now grown-up and widowed Michael Banks (played by Ben Whishaw - another delight). He has been struggling to keep the household together since his wife's death, aided by his sister, Jane (Emily Mortimer - yet another delight - notice a pattern?), and trusty housekeeper, Ellen (Julie Walters). Lin-Manuel Miranda is the neighborhood lamplighter, Jack, a former apprentice to Bert the chimney sweep from the prior movie, complete with Cockney accent (less awful than the much maligned Dick van Dyke accent but still dicey). And there are the three adorable children (Nathanael Saleh, Pixie Davies, and Joel Dawson) that Mary Poppins has to teach to use their imagination and put aside grown-up cares to remain children a bit longer.

The movie is a classic Disney romp from start to finish, brimming with brand new musical numbers and catchy choreography courtesy of director Rob Marshall. If you can, I would avoid reading the opening credits, because there are quite a few casting choices up front that are so much more exciting when revealed during the film. When I saw Sandy Powell was the costume designer, I got real excited, and boy, did she not disappoint. There's a sequence in the movie when the characters enter into a 2-D animation world, and the costumes that they are wearing do the most extraordinary job of looking like they're two-dimensional whilst being on three-dimensional humans. I can't quite explain the effect; they look slightly hand-drawn and drop-dead gorgeous.

I can't say the music is something that stuck in my head - there's no Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-esque number that blew my socks off - but Blunt can sing her heart out and of course Miranda can too, so they sell every number. Some of the songs are incredibly moving and sad, whilst others are ribald and slightly scandalous for children - at one point, I wondered if Rob Marshall had forgotten he was directing Mary Poppins and veered off into Cabaret. But the special effects are jawdropping, and even though they're relying on old-school 2-D animation, they've found a miraculous way to blend it seamlessly with the 3-D action. By the end of this movie, you will feel like a little kid again, because you have completely suspended your disbelief and entered the world of your imagination.

Mary Poppins Returns says pish posh to cynicism; instead, every frame is pure joy distilled into its cinematic essence. It is the best Christmas movie you could offer up to yourself this year. We all need to rejoice: let Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda show you how it's done. 

Roma: Affecting Art

If you have a Netflix account, you may have noticed your login screen has turned into a black and white ad to Roma. Forget whatever you were planning on binge watching, and spend the next two hours watching Alfonso Cuaron's masterful ode to Mexico instead.

The movie tells the story of Cleo (first-time actress Yalitza Aparicio who must now star in ALL the things), a maid for an affluent family in Mexico City. The opening credits are of soapy water flowing over tiles in the forecourt of the family home, and as you watch the shadow of a plane flying overhead on the lapping waves, you know that what you are about to enjoy is an artistic feast for the senses. Indeed, it is paramount that you turn the volume up, because this movie surrounds you with the cacophony of Mexico City. Dogs are barking, cars are honking, crickets are chirping, the radio's blaring. While the foreground may follow Cleo's adventures, there are a thousand other stories taking place in the background. I liken it to a Where's Waldo book - you know there's a central character you're supposed to be looking for, but as you gaze at the page, there's so much happening in the periphery that you sometimes have to remind yourself to return to Cleo and her employers.

I won't go into any more detail about what happens to Cleo or the family she works for. Things build on each other gradually and by the time the film reached its conclusion, I was startled to discover that I was irrevocably in love with this woman and rooting for her every moment. The reason I was startled is because this is such a classically "arty" film; shot in black and white, with breathtakingly crisp cinematography and scenes that are staged to elicit the best effects of light and shadow to dazzle your eyes. In the midst of all this beauty, I didn't think I felt an emotional connection to the story, but how wrong I was. Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira (who plays Sofia, Yalitza's employer) both break your heart in different ways as women struggling to get by, even though they come from extremely different backgrounds.

Roma is a magnetic movie, compelling to look at and listen to, but also deeply affecting and emotional. It highlights the everyday beauty in a maid's mundane existence and the ugliness among the upper classes, and brings them together in dramatic set pieces that are as gorgeous as they are frightening. There are terribly sad moments, but also incredibly funny ones (watch out for every scene with the family car - they made me laugh and then reached a very satisfying resolution). I won't be surprised if Alfonso Cuaron nabs an armload of Oscars next year - as writer, editor, cinematographer, producer, and director, this is emphatically his vision and his story, and it is a love letter to the city of his childhood. In one scene, some characters watch the 1969 space movie Marooned in a theater, and you immediately know this is what inspired Cuaron to make Gravity 44 years later.

Roma reminded me a great deal of my summers in India, and made me wonder about the inner lives of the maids who always came in and out of my relatives' homes. I am woefully ignorant of Mexican history and did not understand the political backdrop of riots and unrest, but who cares about worldly matters when your only focus is to ensure that Cleo will be alright? Like the family she worked for, I loved Cleo so, so much, and I could happily spend a few more hours watching her lie in the sun after doing the laundry and listen to the birds sing. Does the art sometimes feel artificial and heightened? Yes. But does it star a woman who is so beguiling that you will find her every movement to be as graceful as a ballerina's? Yes.

Widows: Bleak Heist

If you go into Widows assuming you're going to be treated to a frothy Ocean's 8-style caper, you're going to be sorely disappointed. However, if you go into it expecting a noir thriller directed by Steve McQueen and starring Viola Davis with guns of steel, you will be thrilled beyond belief.

The movie opens with a heist gone wrong, and a gang of robbers are killed. Led by Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson), their misdeeds finally caught up with them. Unfortunately, the money they stole belongs to a Chicago gangster and he needs it to finance his political campaign. So he rocks up to Veronica's (Viola Davis) penthouse and demands that she pay up $2 million to satisfy her dead husband's debts. Thankfully, Harry left her his notebook, which contains the plans for his next heist, a job that would net a cool $5 million. So, Veronica reaches out to the widows of her husband's gang and asks if they will help her before they are all murdered by the mob. Unsurprisingly, they agree.

This female dream team includes Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, and Cynthia Erivo. You may think you know what part each has to play in the heist, but as the movie progresses, each lady demonstrates hitherto unknown depths and resolve to get this plan moving along. They may be poor and on the brink of ruin, but these women aren't going down without a fight. And all of this takes place against the political backdrop of the special election for Chicago's 18th Ward, a fight rife with corruption, racism, and nepotism ('Murica!). There are a lot of seemingly disparate plots in this film, but stick with it - they all coalesce in a fashion that led the audience in my particular theater to gasp out loud.

This movie is extremely dark and violent - Daniel Kaluuya plays one of the mobsters threatening the widows, and if you thought you loved him from Get Out and Black Panther, be prepared to now be insanely frightened of him for the rest of your days. He is a merciless psychopath in this movie, and I need him to star in a romcom ASAP so he can stop featuring in my nightmares. Meanwhile, the ladies of this film put Wonder Woman to shame. The minute Viola Davis is in a tank top hauling bags of money, you'll be wondering what her gym routine is, because that lady is a bona fide action star. The dialogue between her and the other women is a Bechdel dream, revealing little nuances of the women's characters. It is particularly enlightening to see how she and Erivo have a different dynamic as two black women, and the initial distrust and then grudging respect they amass for each other.

Co-written by Gillian Flynn and Steve McQueen, Widows covers a whole slew of themes, whether it's race, gender, or political corruption. It is a movie of our times and while oftentimes cringe-inducing with its violence, you will definitely whoop and cheer for these women as they overcome the odds to fight the man. Hollywood, pay attention. We want more movies like this please. 

Mary Queen of Scots: The Bland and the Beautiful

My main takeaway after watching Mary Queen of Scots was that this should have been turned into a Netflix series that I could cozily watch at home on a rainy afternoon. At least then there would have been time for character development, some attention to historical accuracy, and many more hours of gorgeous costumes, sweeping Scottish vistas, and Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie ruling the land. Unfortunately, as a movie, this endeavor is more irritating than enthralling.

As the title implies, this is the story of the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots (not sure why the film title eliminates the comma but add that as one more irritating thing about the film). Raised in France as a baby, she returns to rule Scotland at the age of 18 after she is widowed, and demands that Elizabeth I of England name her as the heir to both the English and Scottish thrones. As Mary, Saoirse Ronan delivers an unsurprisingly fantastic performance, while Margot Robbie is equally captivating as Elizabeth I (though she has much less screen time and seems to be relegated to a much more petty role). Honestly, if the movie had solely consisted of these two women engaged in heated political battle, it would have been glorious. But, as with real life, enter the men to ruin everything.

This movie feels like a soap opera and romance novel - not the good kind. I had to read an article afterwards about what was fact vs fiction to see if maybe this was one of those instances where I was being too critical and the events depicted in the film actually happened in real life. But no they did not. There are weird elements about the sexuality of certain characters, and frankly the notion that Mary picked her next husband after he went down on her is insulting. Give the woman a bit more credit for thinking with her head than her vagina. And Elizabeth I is portrayed as an oddly weak-willed monarch who is jealous of Mary's beauty and fertility. Again, ladies can be jealous of each other for their intelligence and political strategy, not just because they have pretty portraits and functional uteri.

Of course, the screenplay is written by a man (Beau Willimon of House of Cards fame), and it does feel like a TV movie than a proper cinematic spectacle. It's directed by a woman, Josie Rourke, who is a brilliant theater director, but needs to do a lot of work when it comes to film direction. There are set pieces in this movie, particularly the final face-off between the two Queens (which again, never happened in real life) that are highly choreographed and theatrical; rather then providing heightened tension, they feel staged and artificial. However, I will say this - the hair and costume design is bewitching.

Mary Queen of Scots has two incredible actresses and aims to tell the story of two incredibly powerful women. Unfortunately, it falls into the trap of all the men in the English and Scottish courts - it fails to recognize the intelligence of these women and decides to turn their relationship into a cat fight. Let's re-do this movie as a miniseries and give Mary her rightful due.

The Silence of the Girls: The Women of Troy Speak Up

I love classical mythology but Homer's Iliad never held much appeal for me. Men waging bitter war over a beautiful woman, with long odes to ships and Greek fighting prowess, topped off with the praises of the great Achilles? Yawn. When I took Classical Mythology 104 in college, I asked my professor what she thought of the movie Troy, and she looked at me in horror and said it was Hollywood garbage. However, I like to think that if I asked her what she thought of Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls, she would say she loved this book with all her heart. I certainly did.

The Iliad begins, "Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilles..." Right off the bat, we know this is a story about the anger of men and gods. But in The Silence of the Girls, we get the story of the enslaved Trojan women, the "prizes" of war, forced to witness the slaughter of their husbands, fathers, and sons, and then pressed into service for the very men who killed their families. In particular, this is the story of Briseis, the Trojan princess who became Achilles' slave and concubine. In the movie Troy, Briseis and Achilles are played by gorgeous actors and make sweet, sweet love. In this novel, Briseis is rightfully depicted as a victim of war, raped by her captors and always fearing for her life and the lives of the women around her. Towards the end of the novel she muses on how people of the future will hear about the tale of Troy and says, "They won't want to be told about the massacres of men and boys, the enslavement of women and girls. The won't want to know we were living in a rape camp. No, they'll go for something altogether softer. A love story, perhaps?" Well, Pat Barker isn't here to give you a soft love story. This is a story of war, and the anger of Briseus's daughter, Briseis. 

This novel is filled with gorgeous, riveting prose that brings the Trojan war to life. I recognized all the familiar names, but now they had rich internal lives, not just poetic epithets that glossed over their emotions and only emphasized their victories. While the focus of the story is Briseis, we get plenty of backstory on Achilles, an emotional wreck of a man who is absolutely destroyed when his friend and lover, Patroclus, is killed in his stead. He has abandonment  issues with his immortal mother, the sea goddess, Thetis, who Briseis reminds him of (which makes the whole thing creepily incestuous). And all throughout, we have Briseis, delivering a traumatic tale of shock, guilt, remorse, and survival. When Patroclus is kind to her, she feels conflicting loyalties. When the Greek armies start losing to the Trojans, she doesn't know how to feel: on the one hand, she wants the Trojans to win. On the other, she knows that this simply means she will be traded as a war prize to a new set of captors, who will not care that she was Trojan to begin with - now she is just a slave, a thing. 

In one memorable chapter, she starts naming the men that Achilles kills on a particularly bloody day and details the gruesome ways in which they were killed. However, she then tells the stories she heard from their mothers about who these men and boys really were. Instead of "Dryops. A sword swipe to the neck that very nearly took off his head," she tells us about, "Dryops, whose mother's labour lasted two full days." It is a story about humanizing the statistics of war and further emphasizes the futility of this nine-year catastrophe that was kicked off solely because one man stole another man's wife. Men are monsters, and this novels illustrates the toll that their arrogance takes on the women and children who are the innocent bystanders. 

I know it all sounds horribly dreary, but The Silence of the Girls is certainly one of the best books I read this year. Evocative, haunting, and rich, it tells an age-old story from a completely fresh perspective and immersed me into Homer's world in a way that I never thought possible. The next time I pick up The Iliad, I will be reading between the lines, searching for the names of those silent women. They are not just Priam's daughter, Hector's wife, Achilles' slave. They are Polyxena, Andromache, Briseis. "Oh, those fierce young women."