First Take: If Beale Street Could Talk- it isn’t about dancing in the moonlight

SYNOPSIS: A woman in Harlem embraces her pregnancy while she and her family struggle to prove her fiancé innocent of a crime.

Usually, we’d make a smart joke about the last time Barry Jenkins made a big awards film at this point. Moonlight, even on its second call at the Oscars made a big mark on the industry, and 2 years on from the infamous saga, he’s back with First Ma- sorry, If Beale Street Could Talk. And it’s another brutal film alright.

Jenkins directs this one incredibly well, and stylistically there is a lot going on for the duration of that 1 hour 59 minute running time, there is a lot to take in during this film and quite rightly so, something which Jenkins and cinematographer James Laxton understand very well. Jenkins adapts the original book by James Baldwin for the big screen pretty well too, and while some aspects of the film might not resonate with audiences the way it was designed to, last night’s smaller than usual Screen Unseen crowd did enjoy it. Plus, Nicholas Britell’s score is another Ronseal job as we’d say. It’s hard to find many glaring faults in this film.

And speaking of faults- or rather faultless- that brings me on to the performances. KiKi Layne and Stephan James are two of the most believable lead actors I have seen in a film for a very long time, and working with this year’s Golden Globe winner for supporting performance in a drama Regina King, Ed Skrein, Brian Tyree Henry (who has had an incredible run of films lately), Dave Franco, Diego Luna and Pedro Pascal, this cast are one of the finest groups of people working together to create a gritty and powerful film- but seeing it in a big 300 seat screen probably isn’t the best idea. Maybe 100-150 seats would work better, because this really is a character piece.

THE VERDICT

Barry Jenkins has once again made a hell of a film, and sure, some elements of the film may not appease the tastes of some cinemagoers (and maybe even other filmmakers- we were without a good chunk of The Great Men™ last night), but it is worth the price of admission purely for those performances.

RATING: 4.5/5