Ricky running in the alley (why he didn’t jump a fence, I still don’t know). Pops telling Craig to “live to fight another day”. When Nino Brown met up with the old man after his trial. There are more than a few scenes that helped raise a generation. With Queen & Slim, Melina Mastoukas and Lena Waithe just added to the list of film sequences that will powerfully impact moviegoers from here until forever
Queen (Jodi Turner-Smith) and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) open the film on a desperately failing first tinder date. Slim asks her why it took more than three weeks to respond to his match, and she basically tells him that he is a stopgap to bad day because she just “didn’t want to be alone”. The conversation is curt and chemistry is almost nonexistent. The uncomfortable atmosphere permeates the movie into a dangerously unappealing start. Queen is decidedly unlikeable; Slim is vexingly optimistic, bordering on annoying naivety, so much so that when the inciting incident sends them on their fugitive journey, the desire to question dubious decisions risks surpassing the rage generated from the police’s abuse of power.
Waithe’s screenplay is filled with risky choices. From one of the leads allowing a gas clerk to hold a gun in exchange for a fill up, to characters who flirt with cringe-worthy stereotypes (the angry black woman, the fast-talking urban kid, the overbearing pimp), the movie almost lands flat before it can get rolling. By the time they arrive at the home of Queen’s Uncle Earl (Bokeem Woodbine), an obvious procurer of wealth through the selling of physical pleasures (read: pimp), about 25 minutes in, the multitude of tropes written into the plot is as uncomfortable as the duo’s date. But a conversation between Queen and one of Earl’s ladies, Goddess (Indya Moore), as she wraps Queen’s bleeding leg begins a striking unraveling of why these risks were initially taken. Queen asks Goddess what makes her happy. Instead of the material extravagances, she says its “when your uncle kisses me on the forehead”. These small words tear at your heart. Unconsious biases are plainly exposed by acts as small, sweet, and profound as a forehead kiss. A slight head nod from bar goers who recognize the two fugitives. An defiant act from a police officer against a system which doesn't care about him. Every subsequent scene builds upon the last to beautifully peel back the movies’ complex layers bit by bit over the next hour and a half.
Backdropped by Mansoukas’ measured direction of astonishing settings gorgeously shot and amazingly scored, Lena Waithe navigates a journey that is part love story, part on the run tale, and wholly a societal investigation. The movie’s complexity parallels the unearthing of Queen’s complicated backstory, which reveals a strength that almost no one could admit they would have the capability of mustering. Jodi Turner-Smith is breathtaking as we watch her slowly chisel her initial hard exterior into an Oscar-like statuesque vulnerability. Kaluuya continues his run as one of the most interesting young actors in Hollywood. He plays 1a to Turner-Smith’s lead, and his restraint allows Slim to complement Queen as their care for each other grows. This dynamic creates an authentic partnership that asserts the ultimate hope to become each other’s legacy.
Messages of legacy and being remembered consistently pop up through the run time, and considering the circumstances in which the characters are desperately looking for others to see them, the idea of a sort of immortality is simultaneously shocking and salient. Is being remembered a worthy cause to make morally grey decisions? The entire film ends up being a study of this murk. The lines of race drawn between the black community and white police officers shadow over the first act, but the subsequent encounters grey the morality of standing on one side. In a recent interview, Waithe discussed that she changed the race of a key player who determines the duo’s outcome. If this character stayed white, it would have played into the expected racial divides, but this choice to change his race raises interesting questions about the scales of self-preservation vs. community.
One scene that defines this examination, and will define the movie for years, takes place at a protest that one of the duo’s supporters attends. When they meet him, he idolizes them like celebrities: entreating that he “just wants someone to know I was here”. The aftermath of the protest is powerfully horrifying. It will prove to be a very divisive scene, with some saying its actions went too far. While the scene is a step too extreme, its power cannot be argued and will become an important piece of conversation. The systematic erasure of a people can lead to a need to be seen so overwhelming that immortality is sought after at the expense of empathy. Queen and Slim are idolized to a level that their iconic picture risks becoming a commodity more important than their true struggle. The protester takes actions that prefers being remembered over actually living, rippling into numerous others’ lives. Police brutality is a subject the movie paints as a black and white picture of what’s right and wrong, but then beautifully muddies with grey hues from the consequences these atrocities leave behind.
Queen & Slim ultimately leaves questions meant to be unanswered in order for the audience to speak through uncomfortable truths this country is consistently facing. The entire cast and crew deliver these moral struggles smack in the middle of your lap. Some of it questionable, All of it beautiful, Queen & Slim is an extraordinarily forceful experience that gets stronger with every passing second. I am giving Queen & Slim 8/10 of Daniel Kaluuya's perpetually red eyes.