This film is beautifully crafted, but it hurts. Barry Jenkins (Oscar Best Picture Moonlight) is the first Writer/Director to bring a James Baldwin novel to the big screen in English. Baldwin wrote this tragic love story in 1970, but that doesn’t make it any less relevant today. A young and talented Black man is accused of a rape which he did not commit, cutting to the quick the hopes and dreams of a young couple in love just beginning their life together.
Jenkins tells the story from Tish’s point of view. She is the stunningly beautiful love interest played by newcomer, Kiki Layne. Layne was asked by a friend to read Tish’s part so her friend could practice for his audition. Later, she decided to submit an audition of her own and the rest is history.
The director stays on Layne’s face in long scenes with no dialogue. Her expressive eyes reveal every emotion exploring her tentativeness and fear of loving a young, Black artist (Stephan James). You become invested in the tender relationship developing between this young girl he grew up with whose friendship turns to romantic love as young adults.
James (Race, Homecoming) plays Alonzo Hunt who is known to his family and friends as Fonny. James has really developed as an actor since his role as Jesse Owens in the film Race. Jenkins focuses on his high cheekbones and engaging, steady gaze to the fullest. The Director uses silent space throughout the film, letting the camera zero in on Tish and Fonny’s faces to get the full flavor of their emotions. He takes his sweet time with every shot.
During Q & A at our screening, both Layne and James admitted it was sometimes a little disconcerting not knowing what the director wanted to get out of them.
Jenkins uses flashbacks He shows us them as babies playing with bubbles in the bathtub and goes back and forth at different times in their lives to show who they are in the past juxtaposed with their developing relationship. Now Fonny is the first to appreciate her as a woman and they explore each other’s comfort level and emotions as they grow deeply in love.
Jenkins laughed explained a scene he almost messed up. In the tender scene where Tish and Fonny first make love, he originally stayed on Tish’s face when hunk James, shirtless, got up to cross the room. Showing the film to a focus group, Including Jenkins’ wife and her friends, they handily objected to not showing the muscle-bound James, bare to the waist. What was he thinking! Jenkins was relieved he did shoot James walking away as a safety and included that money shot for the ladies.
This story becomes much more. It deals with the injustice of false incarceration of Black men by racist White cops and the effect it has on families and relationships. Because Fonny and Tish grew up together, their families know each other well. When Tish realizes she is pregnant after Fonny goes to jail, Jenkins shows the two families realistically grappling with both joy and concern.
Tish’s mother, Sharon, played with incredible sensitivity by Regina King, shows she is apprehensive of what her daughter faces with her man behind bars. She takes matters into her own hands, and the scene showing her in Puerto Rico is devastating and powerful trying to find a way to get Fonny released. King gives a remarkable performance showing just the right amount of tension knowing when she is about to go too far.
The birth of Tish and Fonny’s baby is also notable. It starts underwater in the bathtub with King helping in the delivery. You experience the pain, surprise and joy of the miracle of birth for both women, sensitively shot. As time passes, Jenkins shows Tish and Fonny’s prison visits, now including their child are increasingly painful to watch
One very out of place scene is where Dave Franco, as a Jewish landlord, is showing Fonny and Tish a loft style apartment that needed a lot of work as a possible place to live. It really doesn’t go anywhere and it’s an awkward role for Franco. Feels like he’s only there are a token sympathetic white man.
It was interesting to hear from Director Jenkins that the racist Officer Bell (Ed Skrein, Game of Thrones) who fingers Fonny in reality the least racist person ever. He told us Skrein in not only married to a black woman, he has two interracial kids. And the director said Skrein knew James Baldwin backwards and forwards spewing lines from his books between virtually every take!
Baldwin’s book was written in 1970. The same injustice he decires on the page is all too prevalent in today’s America. Barry Jenkins wrote this screenplay before he even had permission from the Baldwin estate. It’s a movie he felt he had to make. Despite some close ups that linger on their subjects too long and a timeline that some will find confusing, this is a film that deserves serious consideration.
Annapurna Pictures 1 hour 59 minutes R
