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.