I feel like I haven’t given the medium of music videos its fair due in these reviews. Yeah, I stick by my labelling of editing-and-soundtrack-reliant horror as ‘music video horror’, and I’ve covered quite a few filmmakers trying to transition from the playlists to the big screen, but I don’t want any of that to take away from the medium’s place as a genuine art form. Hell, some of the biggest heavy-hitters in cinematic history got started with music videos; names like David Fincher and Spike Jonze owe a lot of their aesthetic to where they started. I bring all this up because this film, the feature debut of Melina Matsoukas, might be one of the most successful transitions between media I’ve covered on here.
Matsoukas is likely better known for her work with Rhianna and Beyoncé, contributing to the latter’s multimedia coronation Lemonade with her video for Formation. That proximity to the unity of music and visuals to detail the black experience holds true here, aided in no small part by just how fucking phenomenal the soundtrack is all on its own. Blood Orange’s original compositions show a real eclectic flair that adds a lot to the accompanying scenes, whether the mood is meant to be contemplative, lustful or nerve-racked. To say nothing of the additional contributions by Little Freddie King, Moses Sumney, and a collector’s edition cut from hip-hop queen Lauryn Hill.
From that bedrock, this story of lovers on the run from the law has some definite Natural Born Killers energy purely through its premise, but it manages to hit a sweeter spot of the overlap between violence in media and violence IRL than NBK could ever manage. That, and it avoids being eye-rollingly patronising about that link, banking on modern-day sentiment regarding mistreatment of black people by law enforcement to create a parable on two unlikely folk heroes. And even that modern specificity feels like window dressing as, aside from brief mentions of them being social media icons, the story and its characters maintain a certain freedom from specific time setting, giving the whole affair a likeable air of timelessness.
It is through the romance between the titular Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith in what should damn well be the start to a deservingly fruitful career in the mainstream) and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) that the film’s narrative, themes, and even pacing feel warranted. I’ve bemoaned quite a few films this year for being overlong (which I can never be sure of whether that’s down to the film itself or my ADHD-riddled attention span), but here, the amount of time we spend with this couple adds to the emotional attachment. When Queen talks about wanting to be Slim’s “legacy”, and Slim wanting to kiss all of Queen’s scars, it works for the same reason as If Beale Street Could Talk: A compelling, naturally-sweet romance that couches the larger sociopolitical commentary around it.
All of which gets given an even bigger boost through the predominantly feminine lens that the story is captured through, as captured in word by writer Lena Waithe, and in frame by Matsoukas and DOP Tat Radcliffe. From pros standing up to their pimps, to Queen figuratively and literally taking the driver’s seat for a lot of the film’s road trip mindfulness, even the finely-honed appearance from Chloë Sevigny (as Flea’s husband, incidentally, in a pairing that operates a lot like their respective acting careers: It works better than you’d ever expect it to), it makes for an interesting perspective shift and a nice change of pace from the likes of Coogler, Peele and Jenkins. Not knocking any of those guys; it’s just cool to see a bit more diversity in this kind of black-owned storytelling.
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