Film Review: Queen & Slim Is A Must-See, Powerful Film
Last week, Twitter asked for a phenomenal film you would see but not see again. Most remarked on films like Requiem For A Dream or Fruitvale Station; films that were so gutturally emotional that to see them once felt like too raw an experience to be replicated. In front of a massive screen and a packed audience of sentimental snifflers, Queen & Slim was that film for me.
Seeing it in a theater was a magnificent, engulfing experience because Queen & Slim is our generation’s Bonnie & Clyde. They are two black Americans dragged into a traumatic situation and, in turn, transformed into legends. Written by Lena Waithe and directed by Melina Matsoukas, the film is very Shakespearean in that you fall in love with two characters as you meet them in the beginning of their doom. Just from knowing America and seeing the trailer, you are not coming to Queen & Slim expecting a happy ending and a kumbaya moment between groups like Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter. Yet, Queen & Slim sparks curiosity because you want to see how a love is born from tragedy, of which Daniel Kaluuya as Slim and Jodie Turner Smith as Queen deliver.
Queen & Slim – First Look
Kaluuya’s Slim and Smith’s Queen are riveting. You pour your heart into their blossoming romance like you are watching Malcom X recite a Jane Austen novel. Two world collide that you don’t see come together; a romantic film and a revolutionary picture. Often, I, myself, have wondered how many black people or person of color have been framed by cops or unjustly killed and left to have the memory be punished. Just look at Trayvon Martin or Eric Garner; the media tore the earth trying to find ways to justify why a teen kid with skittle in his hand walking home and a big guy with asthma, hanging around a store, were terrifying and had to be put down. The same happens to Queen & Slim, but the video footage of their self-defense against a racist cop, with an abusive past, leave the country torn. To blacks, they are heroes and, to whites, they are villains. Such a narrative division is too common when discussing police brutality.
The importance of Waithe’s writing and Matsoukas direction is that they show the humanity and beauty of blackness, and how it can be torn and traumatized by a white man’s whim. Sturgill Simpson is only 5 minutes in the film, as Officer Reed, but his moment is important in redefining two black lives and embodying that a racist with a badge is not a cop but a danger to society. He is so instantly moody and eager to find an issues, which IS NOT what police should be. His role and background epitomizes why we must further racial sensitivity and history in our educational training, especially for cops, because no civil servant should divide communities between the ones he protects and the ones he arrests. This truth reverberates as every scene is gorgeously shot but pulsing with a sadness as it is one step closer to an end we know will not be happy.
Queen & Slim – Official Trailer
Smith’s Queen is stunning, strong, and fiercely intelligent. As a lawyer she is so instantly aware that they will either die or be locked away for live. Smith shows the duality of Queen as a woman that wants to feel more but knows most of the world will shut her out; until she meets Kaluuya’s Slim. Daniel gives Slim such a massive heart and sensitivity, he could make a rock feel heartbreak. Their chemistry makes you protective of these characters, and, in turn, teaches viewers that black lives matter but they are not treated equally. Hence, a crowded theater cried, laughed, cringed, dreamed, and thought about how the world could be better for more than two hours, which is such a human feat. Queen & Slim comes out November 27.
