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| Author | Zoe Aresti |
Since Moonlight (2016) grabbed all the headlines over a year and a half ago, as the 89th Academy Award’s Best Picture winner, we’ve all been waiting for the next big thing from director, Barry Jenkins. It’s safe to say, he captured the hearts of this year’s London Film Festival fans and critics, with five-star reviews across all the usual media outlets for his latest masterpiece If Beale Street Could Talk which hits UK cinemas on 8 February 2019.
This adapted screenplay contender is also written by Barry Jenkins in collaboration with James Baldwin, the author of the novel which this story comes from. It tells us the story of Tish Rivers (KiKi Layne), a young woman in early 1970s Harlem, fighting to prove her fiancé innocent in an all too familiar wrongful conviction case, while she is carrying their first child. The film switches seamlessly between Tish and Alonzo’s ‘Fonny’s’ (Stephan James) preceding days before his arrest and his time in prison. We see the ups and downs of their relationship in a piece of story-telling which couldn’t be more realistic.
Both KiKi Layne and Stephan James are great in their lead and supporting roles in the film, and will undoubtedly be nominated at next year’s awards. Whether they are worthy of these awards, however, is a different question. The film completely centers around their relationship, their chemistry and their hope and determination, yet it is the scenes where they are accompanied by a brilliant supporting cast, which are the most memorable. Regina King, shows glimmers of her memorable performance in Ray (2004), and both Colman Domingo and Michael Beach are characters you wish appeared more often throughout.
If Beale Street Could Talk is once again a beautifully directed film from Barry Jenkins, which takes the simplest of moments between two people, and presents them to the audience in the most romantic of ways possible. However, rather than allowing it to be an artistic-fueled slow burner of a film, which it does run the risk of being at times, it has several significant scenes, like the family announcement at Tish’s family’s apartment, which manage to have you laughing your head off and then shock you in a space of seconds.
Jenkins is set to play a vital role in awards season once again next year, with a very likely contender for Best Director. It has a great chance in the Cinematography category (James Laxton) as well as in the Music/Original Score categories (Nicholas Britell).