If Beale Street Could Talk
Composite Score: 85.43
Starring: KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Regina King, Teyonah Parris, Colman Domingo, Ebony Obsidian, Dominique Thorne, Michael Beach, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Diego Luna, Ed Skrein, Emily Rios, Finn Wittrock, and Brian Tyree Henry
Director: Barry Jenkins
Writer: Barry Jenkins
Genres: Drama, Romance
MPAA Rating: R for language and some sexual content
Box Office: $20.60 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
If Beale Street Could Talk is Barry Jenkins’s film adaptation of the novel by James Baldwin of the same name about a young couple living in Harlem in the 1970s. The film follows Tish (KiKi Layne) as she works to prove the innocence of her boyfriend and father of her unborn child, Fonny (Stephan James), when he is wrongfully imprisoned for rape. Tish receives help from her mother, Sharon (Regina King), and from Fonny’s lawyer Hayward (Finn Wittrock) when the woman accusing Fonny flees to Puerto Rico. In the midst of the legal drama, Tish shares the story of her and Fonny’s romance through flashbacks and voiceovers, ultimately resulting in a tragically cathartic love story about dealing with the injustice and prejudice of the American legal system. Jenkins’s follow-up to his Best Picture winner Moonlight received Oscar nominations for Best Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Regina King.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
If Moonlight shone consistently for three full acts, Jenkins’s follow-up doesn’t quite match that intensity and success. If Beale Street Could Talk really struggles to land its plane, delivering an intense and engaging first act, an emotional and frustrating (intentionally) second act, and a third act whose deviations from the source material leave the audience with exactly the same message as the novel but with a much less engaging story. Certain moments in the film’s final minutes still land powerfully, like Fonny’s interaction with his son over the snack foods and Sharon’s pleas with Victoria Rogers, but overall, it's a third act full of much more telling than showing that undercuts so much of the showing from the rest of the film. It vilifies the system much more than any individuals, and I think, five years removed, it would have been better to have some individuals taking the blame alongside the systems that created them (like the novel does). Jenkins’s revisions leave a bit to be desired in this film adaptation, but it’s not entirely without merit.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
I will say unequivocally that the first two acts of Jenkins’s adaptation of If Beale Street Could Talk contain some of the best examples of adapting scenes from a novel for the screen. He captures the essence of Baldwin’s work excellently in the narration that KiKi Layne provides, in the set design of the prison and of Fonny’s apartment, in the conversations that surround the revelation of Tish’s pregnancy, in the intimacy and sincerity of the emotions that all the characters experience, in the way the narrative unfolds by bouncing back and forth between Tish’s past and her present. It feels like a beautiful execution of bringing a novel to the screen, doing plenty of justice to the great author’s work (even if the third act fails to perfectly stick that landing). Like Baldwin’s novel, the whole world feels lived in and real, a testament to the performers and the cinematography of James Laxton (Moonlight and The Underground Railroad). From KiKi Layne’s heartfelt leading performance to Stephan James’s desperate portrayal of Fonny to Regina King’s Award-winning depiction of motherhood in Sharon and even to Brian Tyree Henry’s brief but impactful turn as ex-con Daniel, all of the performances contain an intense sense of authenticity that are only heightened by Laxton’s creative use of the camera, all of which come together to create this gritty real-world feel that is also a work of art, like James Baldwin’s novel.
Barry Jenkins brings forth a beautiful homage to James Baldwin’s novel in his adaptation of If Beale Street Could Talk thanks to the work of his actors and cinematographer and his faithful adherence to the first two acts of the story, earning the film a spot among the greats. His deviations from Baldwin in the third act might detract from the overall impact of the film but only slightly thanks to the beauty of the rest of the film. You can currently stream this one on Amazon Prime Video if you’d like to see what I’m talking about.
