Thank you for this journey, no matter how it ends

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 films of 2020

#12 : Queen & Slim

Of all the films released in 2020, Queen & Slim was perhaps the 2020-est. Following two young African Americans who meet on a Tinder date and get plunged into a nightmare when a cop car pulls them over, Melina Matsoukas' film tackled police brutality and mass protest in scenes that echoed out in real life as the year progressed. But despite its bleak subject matter and the righteous anger fuelling it, Queen & Slim again and again finds beauty amidst the horror which features too much in the Black experience, whether it's the stunning visuals captured by cinematographer Tat Radcliffe, or the tender romance that unfurls between Jodie Turner-Smith's Queen and Daniel Kaluuya's Slim – a pair who, on their first date, wish they'd swiped left on each other. A road movie with an important destination, it gets there in style.

This is a film I've had on my list to watch for some time because the rule is that if it's got Daniel Kaluuya in it then it's got to be worth watching - with the exception of Johnny English Reborn, although the jury's still out on what he's going to be up to in Barney when it comes out. I'm intrigued to see what makes this film the 2020-est though.

I don't really need to tell you anything more than Empire have told you above - although I'd argue that it more features police brutality and mass protest rather than truly tackling them. The main focus is on what happens to Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) after their date goes somewhat wrong. And the film ramps up the stakes in a way that you really don't see coming - it does a good job in raising the tension without any obvious cause because even when things appear to be calming down, you just feel that things are getting worse as the film approaches the end. I'm obviously not going to tell you how it ends - it wasn't how I was expecting it to, but it's a very powerful and poignant ending.

The nature of the film reminded me of True Romance with a couple of "innocents" on a road trip after an "unfortunate episode" - the skin tones are somewhat darker here but it's got a similarly cool and episodic vibe to it. Stylistically, I was reminded of Moonlight in that this wasn't a film that was aimed at me in the slightest, but it was still relatably (that's a word, right?) beautiful and tender, with a load of content that was neither beautiful nor tender. Also, somewhat surprisingly, it's storytelling structure shared some characteristics with the last film we met, 1917, despite the subject matter, location and historic setting being completely different.

The film is obviously going to live or die on the basis of the central pair and they deliver well. It's all nicely acted with good chemistry, and their relationship has a good journey, starting as very antagonistic but maybe (no spoilers) changing as the film progresses. Daniel has a very good American accent - and I also learned that Jodie Turner-Smith is British as well, which had me questioning whether there were any Americans in this film at all (spoiler alert - yes, most of them are).

The episodic nature of the film means that no-one else is in the film for long, but Flea (from Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Chloe Sevigny make a surprisingly believable urban American couple (which is a sentence I never thought I'd type),  Bokeem Woodbine is good as dodgy Uncle Earl and Sturgill Simpson (a singer who takes acting jobs from time to time) kicks things off nicely as the cop they meet.

This is Melina Matsoukas' debut feature (although she's made an awful lot of music videos for some reasonably well known artists including Beyoncé and Rihanna) and it's a very confident piece of film-making. It's beautifully lit - it often looks like a Edward Hopper painting, particularly in the night scenes but the day scenes contrast well, with some gorgeous landscapes, both urban and rural, on display.

It's also very well written, by Lena Waite and James Frey - the subject matter is something I can't (and shouldn't) claim to relate to, but it's presented in an all too believable fashion. What I can relate to is how anyone's life can turn on a sixpence - yes, most peoples' bad dates don't result in them being on the run from the police, but things can go south for anyone pretty quickly without necessarily understanding how or why. This film presents a believable situation in which that happens and the characters involved act in a way that is perfectly understandable - which is mostly incomprehension mixed with bravado. 

It's a very African-American film but it's not presenting any "us good, them bad" vibes - there's plenty of room for bad behaviour on both sides of the fence, although the white side of the fence is very rarely visited here. It's interesting because it presents the view that the US is utterly fucked as a society - and it's hard to imagine that recent events have improved matters in the slightest.

And finally in the praise department, the soundtrack is also very decent being a mix of soul, classical and hip-hop which blend together nicely - this was done by another British person, Devonté Hynes (who was previously known as Lightspeed Champion).

A couple more random throwaways - the turquoise Catalina they drive (amongst several other cars) is a very fine vehicle indeed (but it wouldn't fit on our drive). And, finally, how on earth do you act having a dislocated shoulder? However you do it, Jodie does a good job of it!

As you can probably guess, I really liked this - it was a proper film with a beginning, middle and ending and some excellent acting, particularly from the central couple. It's not currently streaming anywhere - it is available to rent, but I imagine it'll pop up on a terrestrial channel some time and it's well worth a look.

#13 - An impressive piece of work