Watching: If Beale Street Could Talk

[white_hart]

In something of a turn-up for the Year of Biopics, tonight we went to see Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk, based on the novel of the same name by James Baldwin. Set in New York in the early 1970s, If Beale Street Could Talk is the story of nineteen-year-old Tish, her romance with her childhood friend Fonny and her efforts to clear his name when he is falsely accused of rape by a cop he previously antagonised.

In a week when my social media continues to be full of discussion about racism in the knitting community it felt important to be watching a film about African-American life and the everyday discrimination suffered by black people in the US. It's also a really good film; surprisingly funny in parts, hard-hitting but not grim. Kiki Layne's Tish is a compelling lead, and I loved both Regina King as Tish's mother and Teyonah Parris as her protective elder sister Ernestine. It made me sorry to have missed Jenkins's first film, Moonlight, due to having been off work ill the day we were supposed to see it, and will look out for his future work. (I have also now managed to get it firmly into my head that Barry Jenkins is a talented young African-American filmmaker and not a middle-aged Welshman, only slightly after I worked out that the Steve McQueen from The Great Escape and the Steve McQueen who directed Twelve Years A Slave are different people.)

Next week it's back on track with the Year of Biopics and On the Basis of Sex, with Emma Grundy from The Archers as Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Comments

[lilliburlero]

I did know that Great Escape Steve McQueen and Director Steve McQueen could not be the same person given that the former died in 1980 but I still double take. Moonlight is a cracking film, I think: I didn't immediately click with it but now I find myself thinking about certain scenes out of the blue.

[white_hart]

At the point where Director Steve McQueen first began to be talked about I hadn't really twigged that Great Escape Steve McQueen was dead, so didn't even have that to guide me.

[alithea]

I'm glad I'm not the only one ;)

This sounds like another one for my watch list, will have to see if it's on locally next week. ETA: ahah, it's on the art cinema in town next week - excellent!

[nineveh_uk]

I find Felicity Jones quite challenging to watch because of the Emma Grundy thing.

[white_hart]

I can't ever quite reconcile her with Emma Grundy, as she neither looks nor sounds like her.

[antisoppist]

Whenever I hear people mention Bradley Cooper, I have to remember he is a different person from Bradley Walsh.

[white_hart]

Yes, I get that one too.