If Beale Street Could Talk 🌆
If Beale Street Could Talk 🌆
Happy Tuesday! Happy 30th Birthday, Katrina, and congratulations to her and my future brother-in-law Mike on their engagement this weekend. In their honor, today’s movie is an all-timer New York romance that I recommended in 2019.
🍿 Today’s movie: If Beale Street Could Talk
Today’s movie is Barry Jenkins’ *ahem* masterpiece If Beale Street Could Talk. The movie was a follow-up to his Oscar-winning also *ahem* masterpiece Moonlight. The movie won Regina King an Oscar — and she’s angling for another this season.
Based on the James Baldwin novel of the same name, If Beale Street Could Talk follows Tish (Kiki Layne) — a young black woman living in 1970s Harlem — as she tries to clear her boyfriend Fonny’s (Stephan James) name of a crime he didn’t commit. Told in a non-linear form, the movie tracks their relationship from its hopeful start through all their highs and lows. [Trailer]
Why you should watch it: The two GIFs below come from a scene midway through the movie after Tish and Fonny are finally able to secure an apartment for themselves. Just look at them. You can feel the hope, excitement, and freedom they both feel.
Director Barry Jenkins is so talented at communicating emotion through film. And while there is the underlying thread of Fonny’s case to pull the movie together, at its core, If Beale Street Could Talk is a romance about first love — and it so beautifully captures the feelings that go along with it.
The movie is pieced together like a memory, shot like a dream, and Nicholas Britell’s score has a melancholic, jazz-infused sound with notes of hope and yearning. All those elements come together to create a masterwork of mood. It’s truly a masterpiece — Jenkins’ second one in a row.
Directed by Barry Jenkins
Runtime 117 mins
Year 2018
Have a terrific and beautiful week!
See you Thursday —
Karl