Queen & Slim stars Daniel Kaluuya from Get Out, Widows, Black Panther and Sicario fame and Jodie Turner-Smith in her first feature film premiere as a couple on a first date faced with an awful choice then must deal with the consequences. Will they live free or die? Melina Matsoukas directs it, and it is her first feature film. She is a critically acclaimed director of music video and television series, but because I don’t have cable or time, I have not had an opportunity to look at her work before this film. Lena Waithe wrote the script, which was inspired by Oprah approval revoked James Frey, (white) author of A Million Little Pieces, a fictional memoir, which I enjoyed after the scandal.
Queen & Slim has some people clutching their pearls, but it was released soon after another movie with a majority black cast that also deals with less than respectable scenarios, Waves, which may be missing similar scrutiny for a number of unknown reasons: the director is white and not as famous as Matsoukas and Waithe; it is an artsy fartsy movie; it was not as heavily marketed, etc. In the zeitgeist, Queen & Slim seems to be deemed a black film, and Waves is not. Black films, fair or not, are expected to be socially responsible because of concerns about the white gaze; i.e. what will white people conclude and generalize about black people based on this movie. Also because there are not so many black films, it is as if any single black film is forced to be a monolith and satisfy all black people who are hungry to see themselves on screen. Right now, black filmmakers are trying to escape the respectability pull which could lead to creative death and lack of variety and find the genre that fits her individual taste and specific story. Unlike Waves, I was a little less uptight and more receptive to take that journey during this film because even though a black filmmaker could still get it wrong and do as much damage as a well-intentioned white filmmaker, I thought it was less likely because she has some skin in the game…literally.
While I understand that it was a strategically wise choice to take the wind out of the critics’ sails who may express outrage at the premise, I do wonder about what my viewing experience would have been like if I was not spoiled about the beginning of Queen & Slim. Memes spoiled a pivotal point about the end, but it was not exactly a wholly unexpected plot twist without the spoilers. I will do my best to leave out spoilers, but no one promoting the film is. My main impression while watching this film was being struck that it was as fresh a reimagining/mashup of the crime romance genre as Quentin Tarantino/Tony Scott’s True Romance though completely different—far less violent and not as much profanity. I am not saying that it does not truck out boatloads of tropes. It does including belligerent sexual tension and defrosting ice queen. It worked to have an odd couple of respectability forced to make a choice that will also potentially lead to the result that they were initially trying to avoid. It is an Adam and Eve basic rawness. Do you ignore your most basic human instincts to retain respectability? Most people would, but then it would be a different movie. Viewers have been going down the rabbit hole critiquing their responses. I think those movies and examples already exist, and this provocative one does not. Either you buy the premise or you don’t. If you can’t, I don’t think that it is the right movie for you.
It was only after Queen & Slim plot device to force them to begrudgingly be together forever that I rolled my eyes at the Rube Goldbergian ways that the film forced them deeper down the road to being criminals and strip them of their identity: their wallets, their belongings, etc. For example, I get annoyed/astonished when in real life people can exist for any length of time without their wallet so these film characters were no exception. Get your most basic shit together! The point seemed to be that they were media images of the height of criminality, but they were actually horrible criminals even when they put their minds to it. When they become fully immersed in a black exploitation film which puzzled and amused me because of the casting, I was left with questions, but then I was able to recalibrate my rhythm with the filmmakers’ best intentions though the execution was shaky narrative wise. Even though it is set in a realistic world, it is the filmmakers’ fantasy of what a criminal underworld would be for black people—a group of respectable people broken and retreating into popular images like the juke joint or the trap house. It felt like a bizarro underground railroad. In a Tarantino film, those characters such as the Fixer are more recognizable. I’m not saying that all of it worked for me. I asked in one scene why a man’s happiness was more important to the women that served him than their own. I do think that it is interesting to explore the further edges of disrepute and horrific senseless behavior and still manage to feel a certain rough sympathy out of recognition that the characters often realize too late that an egg cannot be unscrambled.
The most provocative aspect of Queen & Slim is the idea that in the respectable mode, this adult couple could never find a space to relax and connect with each other, but only as criminals who are already facing the worst case scenario can they experience freedom to be children again, teenagers dressing up, trying things for the first time ever and being open to people and experiences in a way that they never could before. The carpe diem aspect of the story began to carry me away with its rhythm, and the imagery and acting is at its strongest as they get further away from their original sin. They become children again. I have no idea if it was a deliberate acting/directing choice, or if Turner-Smith was organically more comfortable embodying her character when her look transformed, but it worked. I would have needed a sweater. It was also beautiful how people rooted for them to live. While the script was often heavy-handed, and there were a lot of awkward prose dump moments, I think the sincerity of the acting, the intentional significance of certain aspects of the film for eagle-eyed viewers and the dissonance between images and sound created a haunting, yearning quality that evoked the romantic tone that Matsoukas and Waithe were trying to achieve. As the movie unfolds, the two began to blend their distinct personalities and embrace the other’s way of looking at the world.
Queen & Slim had me believing that after six days, these two people were a unified force of love that wanted to live so it worked. The strength of the premise, the iconic imagery and acting could make this film a cult film classic in the future. It is far from a perfect film. In the beginning, it could often be called ridiculous and absurd, and it is a bit too long, too self-indulgent, but it underscores a melancholic realism that infects all movies with black characters that inhabit fictional genres that have not been as embraced by black filmmakers in the past. I enjoyed it.