By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight”) continues his cinematic exploration of the Afro-American experience in 20th century America with “If Beale Street Could Talk,” adapting James Baldwin’s critically acclaimed 1974 novel. The symbolic title references the 1916 W.C. Handy song “Beale Street Blues.”
In 1970s Harlem, a 19-year-old discovers she’s pregnant with her 22-year-old boyfriend’s baby after he’s been framed by a racist cop with a grudge against him and arrested for a rape he didn’t commit. Tish (Kiki Lane) and Alfonso, known as Fonny (Stephan James), are tender soulmates, totally committed to one another. Yet, except for their families, the rest of the world seems stacked against them.
Tish’s hardworking parents (Colman Domingo, Regina King) are supportive, but Fonny’s hot tempered father (Michael Beach) hauls off and hits his sassy, judgmental mother (Aunjanue Ellis). Later, Tish’s steely mother travels to Puerto Rico to confront the woman (Emily Rios) who mistakenly identified Fonny in a police lineup.
Barry Jenkins took a real gamble, writing the screenplay before receiving approval from James Baldwin’s estate, then casting newcomer Kiki Layne, a graduate of The Theater School at DePaul University, and Canadian actor Stephan James, who played Jesse Owens in “Race” (2016).
Undoubtedly, the racism/injustice that this young couple faces resonates today. “You look at Fonny, and you look at issues of mass incarceration and false imprisonment in this country,” James says. “A lot of my performance takes place behind prison glass, and that adds a whole element and makes it real.”
“It makes you question just what has to happen for progress,” Layne adds.
Jenkins’ choice of episodic, nonlinear flashbacks is occasionally confusing, while Brian Tyree Henry’s cameo as Fonny’s childhood friend, who was also falsely imprisoned, adds depth.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “If Beale Street Could Talk” is an anguished 7, augmented by Nicolas Britell’s synergetic score.
According to folklore in “The Kid Who Would Be King,” when the bitterly divided world is in discord, King Arthur will return to save humanity. But the idea that the legendary King could appear in Brexit-era London comes as a shock to 12-year-old Alex Elliot (Louis Ashbourne Serkis).
Mild-mannered Alex and his chubby best friend Bedders (Dean Chauymoo) are constantly tormented at their middle-class suburban school by Lance (Tom Taylor) and Kaye (Rhianna Dorris).
Fleeing from bullies, Alex sneaks into an abandoned construction site where he discovers a sword stuck in a piece of broken concrete. Extracting it, he reads the Latin inscription which indicates it might be King Arthur’s fabled Excalibur.
Although he treasures the King Arthur book his estranged dad gave him, Alex doesn’t take it seriously until a fiery demon torments him that night.
Then a bizarre transfer student befriends him. Switching between teenage form (Angus Imrie) and elderly (Patrick Stewart, wearing a Led Zeppelin T-shirt), the wizard Merlin relates a centuries-old curse.
Arthur’s evil half sister, enchantress Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson), who was imprisoned deep underground, will rise to claim Excalibur during the upcoming solar eclipse. So it’s up to Alex to recruit an army, leaving his mother this note: GONE ON QUEST TO SAVE BRITAIN DON’T WORRY.
Enrolling his enemies as Knights of the Round Table and mentored in the chivalric code by Merlin, plucky Alex embarks on a mission that takes him through Stonehenge and beyond, pursued by flaming skeletons on horseback.
British writer/director Joe Cornish (“Attack the Block”) creates a witty, imaginative, updated Arthurian allegory, filled with wonder and delight. Conjuring Merlin notes that legends of the past are always filtered through ‘unreliable storytellers,’ filling the needs of the powerful. “You must write them anew,” he urges.
FYI: Louis Ashbourne Serkis’s father is Andy Serkis (“Lord of the Rings”).
On the Granger Gauge, “The Kid Who Would Be King” is a sword ‘n’ sorcery 7, a charming fantasy/adventure for the whole family.
Nominated as a Foreign Language Oscar contender, director Pawel Pawlikowski’s period love story “Cold War” is dedicated to his parents.
Since the English subtitles are few, fragmented and far between, the episodic plot, which begins in 1949 in newly Communist Poland, revolves around Wiktor (Tomasz Kot), an ethnomusicologist who falls in love with Zola (Joanna Kulig), a charismatic singer/dancer.
They meet and fall in love when he’s the creative director and she auditions for Mazowsze, a real life folk-and-dance group, founded by the Polish People’ Republic in the 1940s.
Their tumultuous relationship continues on-and-off for decades, amid political upheaval, as they travel within and beyond the Iron Curtain, spending volatile interludes in Warsaw, Prague and Paris.
“The most interesting dramatic characters I’ve ever come across,” Pawlikowski says about his mother and father. They apparently fell in love, married, divorced, and betrayed each other multiple times until their deaths in 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Lukasz Zal’s monochromatic cinematography evokes nostalgia for a time when most film were in black-and-white, but — since the majority of the Polish, Russian, German, Croatian and French dialogue is not properly translated into English — making an emotional connection with the cryptic characters may be difficult for a non-linguistic viewer.
On the plus side, the background music ranges from folkloric to Soviet-era hymns to George Gershwin’s “Porgy & Bess” and Bill Haley & His Comet’s “Rock Around the Clock.”
“Music is their profession. It’s what brings them together and keep them together,” Pawlikowski explains. “And music became a great device to glue this life — and this movie — together.”
Nevertheless, I found Pawlikowski’s multiple-award-winning “Ida” (2015) — about a young Polish nun who discovers she’s actually Jewish — far more accessible.
On the Granger Gauge, “Cold War” is a frigid, forlorn 5, evoking bleak melancholy.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
