Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk follow-up to his 2016 Oscar winner for Best Picture Moonlight is a soft tale of two African American lovers set in 1970’s Harlem. The film is adapted from the 1974 James Baldwin novel of the same name. After the critical success of Moonlight, Jenkins more or less could have picked whatever movie he wanted to do next and received the green light and the funding. If anything, I am glad that he only waited about a year to begin his next project. If Beale Street Could Talk is a fine little film. As good as it is, I somehow expect that the novel was even better. However, it lacks the emotional punch that Moonlight had, even if it has a plot that would make you angry had you not already known for it to be true. While not based specifically on a true story, as the opening lines of the movie suggest, “Every black person born in America was born on Beale Street, whether in Jackson, Mississippi or Harlem, New York. Beale Street is our legacy.” one could say that this movie is a combination of so many true stories about how African Americans were treated in this country in the 1970s. Unfortunately, while this film should evoke more anger, we have become a hardened society. As a society, we often barely blink at the atrocities happening today. So are we really going to get upset anymore at injustices from 40+ years ago? Especially when this isn’t new information. It’s sad, but we have become hardened as a society.
Category Archives: Barry Jenkins
Moonlight (2016)
Barry Jenkins’ (Medicine for Melancholy) Moonlight is an ambitious film in so many different ways. Though it particularly revolves around the uncertainty of being gay, it also touches on many of the other important issues of the day, including adolescent bullying, drug abuse, masculinity, broken relationships, and poverty. The acting in this movie is out of this world. Never does this feel like a movie to me. Rather it feels like you are just an invisible camera watching three different stages of a male discovering and dealing with his sexual identity in the hardships of a destitute part of Miami, Floria. The film is divided into three chapters. All are centered around the same Chiron. At age 6 or 7, he is referred to as Little. At age 16 or 17 (the chapter that gets the most focus), he is Chiron. And for the last chapter, he’s age 26 or 27 and goes by the name Black. He’s equally conflicted in all three different stages of his life. The simplicity of this movie is its strength. If you like artistic movies that center around a real story with characters who feel real, you will probably find this movie absolutely riveting.
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