If Beale Street Could Talk it would say this film is like a vintage recliner, it looks good and it feels good but it just sits there and doesn't go anywhere.
Boring, boring and boring. I am sorry but leaving aside the technical movie aspects, I found the story pretty weak and way too long.
I enjoyed this movie, great watching for a chilled Sunday afternoon
A great piece of material that has been tainted by a very odd choice of pacing.
[9.4/10] Nobody blends love and tragedy like Barry Jenkins. If Beale Street Could Talk is, like Moonlight before it, a profound story of two people who very much belong together, but who broken systems rip apart. It is both heartening and heart-breaking, a movie that will make you want to celebrate the love of two people deeply devoted to one another, and the family that goes to great lengths to protect it, but also lament the larger forces and tragedies that threaten the sanctity of such a beautiful thing at every turn.
If Beale Street Could Talk is divided into before and after. There is the time prior to Fonny’s incarceration for a crime he didn’t commit, a blissful age where love blossoms between two people who know each other so well that they cease to become separate individuals and start to become one unified whole. And there is the time after he is laid low by a corruptible institution and bad actors, where those with less power and resources must scramble, futily, to set him free.
The film lives in the contrast between those two eras of this couple’s lives. The force of Jenkins’ production emerges in the juxtaposition. Beale Street is not a linear movie. Instead, it opens with two young, beautiful people expressing their love and devotion to one another in gorgeous, eye-popping color. It follows that moment of mutual commitment with a dingy, washed out prison visitation room, where the same two lovers have to express their affections through glass. So goes the movie, where scenes and sequences of romantic triumph are interspersed with the bitter and harsh realities of what mass incarceration and an overburdened justice system imposes on decent folk who simply long to be together.
What comes through in these moments is not just the unfathomable distance between one moment in time and another. It is the pure humanity on display in so many sequences here. The genius of Jenkins and his team is that they know how to expertly blend the raw authenticity and recognizable nature of human interaction, with the stylized filmmaking that helps to convey the ineffable emotions behind those interactions.
To the point, the cadence of Beale Street is an alternating rhythm of extended conversations between confidante -- delivering unwaveringly with a naturalism and conviction that sits the audience down next to the players -- punctuated with sumptuous montages and cinematographic flourishes, channeling the almost holy sentiments and connections that fuel them. In places, some of the dialogue feels stagey, as though with the right adaptation, this could be a stunning play. But Jenkins & Co. commit to the cinematic form, both in how they shoot those extended, intimate family moments, and in how they connect them via impressionistic celebrations of joy and solace which will, sadly, be stifled down the line.
Make no mistake, Beale Street is utterly gorgeous to look at. With his depiction of New York City in the 1970s, Jenkins and cinematographer James Laxton call to mind the work of luminaries like Scorsese and Coppola. There’s a lushness to so many of the more romantic or affectionate stretches of the film, done up in bright primary blues and yellows and greens. But their team cuts that sterling image of love with literally darker moments, the major figures shrouded in shadows, but lit well enough to see the contrast in their faces, forcing the audience to take in every expression. Smoke-filled spaces, where the light trickles in, trace the blend of light and dark that invigorates the film.
It’s the mix of heaven and hell that crosses one family’s joyous celebration of their daughter announcing her pregnancy with another’s shame and internal strife over the realization that their son is the father. It is the joyous reunion between two old friends who have the ease of manner and shorthand that evinces a longstanding bond, cut with a recollection of the brutality of prison that has clearly shaken one of those two men to his core. It is a mother’s courageous, desperate plea on behalf of her child, to free the father of her grandson, contrasted with a young woman utterly devastated by her rape and unwilling or unable to reprocess it.
All of these interludes are scored with a combination of soothing violins that set the tone for the romance of Tish and Fonny and their affecting intimacy, along with a lyrical jazz patter that matches that smooth sonic silk with a more chaotic energy. In moments when the film focuses on Fonny’s hands, or on Tish’s nigh-angelic bearing, or on so many characters looking directly at the camera, the music helps tell the story without words.
Beale Street contains ample voiceover, communicating Tish’s inner thoughts as the movie jumps back and forth in time. Her words are the connective tissue between those two era, the prior hopeful interludes where friendship blossoms into romance blossoms into family, and the latter patches of desperation, made manifest through a system both malevolent and oblivious that tears it to shreds despite so many good works to stave it off.
That’s what stamps If Beale Street Could Talk is so remarkable. It is both of these things at once. Edited to that effect, it could just be a love story, the tale of an astounding bond between two people that is tested in ways unimaginable to many but a constant spectre to so many more, that persists through those hardships. But separate from that, it could also be chopped up into a bitter story of potential unjustly squanched, young lovers robbed of their transcendent connection, thanks to prejudice and indifferent institutions that drain those unfortunate enough to be caught up in its gears of money and patience and life.
Jenkins marries these two irreconcilable elements of the story of Tish and Fonny. No other filmmaker could make you so profoundly feel the depth and lived-in love between these two achingly real human beings. And no other filmmaker could make you so harshly confront the tragedies imposed on them by forces beyond their control, forces which can stifle their love, hinder it, but never extinguish it.
It's a story of love, and it's a story of hate. It's a story of family, and it's a story of character. It's the story of one voice, and it's the story of many voices. It's the story of Beale Street, and the things it would say if allowed to reveal the truths of the people it sees.
Beautifully filmed but it doesn't really go anywhere.
The movie premise is reality. Racism by police against our coloured counterparts but the movie reminded me of a propaganda film and for that reason a low rating.
A touching love story. Beautifully shot and an amazing score. Some great performances, especially Brian Tyree Henry (which he is having just a fantastic year).
Similar to Blindspotting, it tries to tackle these big systemic issues, but because its focus is so broad it ends up feeling like a surface level exploration of everything that's on its plate. It's not bad or inaccurate, however by the end I was left wanting more of everything. What doesn't help either is that the romance between our two main characters, which is a substantial part of the film, is written in the most plain way imaginable. In many ways the supporting characters are given the most interesting roles here, as the most memorable scenes are bits that involve Brian Tyree Henry and Regina King. There are some potentially interesting story beats that are entirely glossed over by narration, which is a shame. The filmmaking, as expected from this director, is pretty much perfect. Nicholas Britell's jazzy score sets the right atmosphere for this story, while the camerawork and colour grading are nothing short of mindblowing. It's confidently slow paced, but not in a way that's boring or drags the film down. In short, I like it but given the amount of similar films that came out around this time period this feels less essential.
6/10
Despite some really strong performances, a powerful score and solid direction, "If Beale Street Could Talk" somehow never really got me emotionally involved. Everything seemed as if I had seen it dozens of times already. Of course, that doesn't mean that the subject matter is unimportant. Quite the opposite: parallel to the "Black Lives Matter" campaign, it is clear that similar fundamental problems of racism are still omnipresent in society today. And yet, for me, only the cinematic aspect worked. The whole legal battle seemed a bit too generic and the love story is too overdone. In the end, "If Beale Street Could Talk" is just an ordinary Oscar movie typical of the recent history of the Academy Awards. However, given how blatantly the topic was previously ignored in these circles, this is at least some progress.
This struck me as a film that would have been much better if it were made in the late '60s or early '70s. Not for technical reasons, but for social. Back then, the message was much more relevant. It would have been more groundbreaking. As a film of today, it's just the same old stuff over and over and over again.
The word that kept flashing through my mind: sumptuous. Is this one of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever seen? The costumes, the cinematography, the actors…my god, everything is so beautiful. Even the screenplay felt heightened, nearly poetic at times, in the same way the color palette was saturated and the lighting was lush. It all stands in stark contrast to the deeply despairing story that unfolds, the tale as old as time of structural racism tearing apart black families. That dissonance cut me to the quick.
Beautifully shot, but emotionally languid
Based on James Baldwin's 1974 novel of the same name, If Beale Street Could Talk is really two stories in one; there's the love story at the narrative's core, giving the film much of its tonal qualities, and on the surface, there's the socio-political protest about racial injustice and inequality, which provides most of the main plot points. Director Barry Jenkins fails to do justice to either of these narratives, with both feeling incomplete, like a pencil-sketch rather than a painting. The biggest problem, however, is the somnolent love story. Employing a Terrence Malick-esque esoteric voiceover, Jenkins lifts entire passages directly from Baldwin. However, what reads beautifully in the novel is badly out of place in the film, even in voiceover, and has the effect of rendering the two central characters completely unrealistic, with their love for one another idealised to such an extent as to become ridiculous.
For my complete review, please visit: https://boxd.it/E9jfd
Regina King is brilliant! Excellent actress
The white man has got to be the devil. Because he sure ain’t a man.
The women of this film are extremely remarkable.. they are the ones doing miracles in this story. Filmmakers should take notes !
I've seen this movie in a sneak preview and I really liked it for the message it conveys as well as for the movie being different to all the other movies that you'll see. It is really slow, it takes a lot of time, has a lot of dialogues and is probably told for at least 40% in off-screen narration. I think this is something that is pretty brave.
Additionally I liked a lot of the scenes that where really artistic, e.g. the scene where you have Fonny with his sculpture and the camera circles around it and we have the smoke of his cigarette. I liked that a lot. And I liked the camera, e.g. in the beginning scene where Tish conveys her news to the mother - this is really great camera work, really great editing and aspects that make this movie really good. Another thing that got me right from the get-go was the music.
Now having pointed out all the positives, the biggest problem I have with this movie is in a kind a missing emotionality. Take Green Book for example: I really had a lump in my throat when Mahershala Ali stood in the rain and started screaming out his dialogue - that was intense. That gave you goosebumps. And I would have really liked to see something of that sort in this movie as well - the story is absolutely worth telling and could have easily included a scene of that kind. In a way it even has - that moment when the mother Sharon is in Puerto Rico. However, and I don't know why - it didn't get to me, which is why I was really surprised that this performance actually won an academy award.
However, I am not saying that the acting was bad. I liked the acting, there was great chemistry between some of the actors, especially KiKi Layne was really great as this young, dreamily-naive girl that just experiences first love. And Colman Domingo and Michael Beach as the two fathers where absolutely great as well and had some really great laughs. Equally good where of course the mothers, portrayed by afore mentioned Regina King and Aunjanue Ellis.
However, in the end, I feel like I wasn't as invested into the characters as I should have been, and I am not sure where exactly to pinpoint the guilt. One aspect I did not needed in the extend it was shown in the movie was the love scenes - we had a lot of those, and for a movie where there isn't much happening, you really wonder if it would have needed that many love scenes - maybe that time would have been better invested into further developing the characters and thus having the viewer more invested?
To end on a positive note: One thing that I actually realized, was the really settle but still very apparent switch of tone - while in the beginning you see this movie probably ending on a positive note, there is that one scene (the artsy one I mentioned before) where this feeling starts to tip over to the negative side - I wouldn't have been surprised if this movie had a really bad ending; and reviewing this movie I wonder if it maybe would have needed this ending ... e.g. I wouldn't have been surprised if at the end the scene from the beginning was something Alonzo was experiencing in his head right before successfully taking his life after having lost the trial
Es una hermosa historia de amor que tal vez se alarga más de lo necesario, sin embargo su narrativa es buena y las actuaciones impecables.
Barry Jenkins follow up to Moonlight is a deliberate look into the failings of the system and the rippling effects that has on the lives of your family and loved ones. When we first see Tish and Fonny it is clear that they love each other and we want to root for them to have a happily ever after. Jenkins jumps around in time as we see how these two grew up together and eventually fell in love, but now Tish is pregnant and Fonny is in jail. Some of the early scenes are the best as Tish narrates and we intercut between the respective families reacting to the news of the pregnancy and just what the next steps should be, Regina King as Tish's mom is especially great and dare I say #MOMGOALS!? Yuck. Anyway, the choice Jenkins makes with a lot of the scenes to shoot the actors head on as they deliver their lines almost directly to the audience isn't a new one but is very effective and warms you to the characters almost instantly. I mentioned at the top that it is a deliberate look because the movie is not in a rush and takes it time which starts to wear thin by the end, I suppose that is part of the point because just like our main characters we aren't as fresh faced and wide eyed by the conclusion and everything isn't quite wrapped up in a nice ending.
This movie is heart-warming, heart-breaking and intense but it is not the writing that captured me but it was the fantastic cast giving splendid performances. Actually, I found the pace of storytelling to be very slow which made it feel really long and after spending all that time to build the story, the resolution was truncated, anticlimactic and confusing (I asked another theatre goer, as we were walking out, how he felt it ended and he had a whole different take than I did). Besides the acting, this is a very measured critique of the African American experience and it does not pull any punches which, in concert with the acting, is probably why it is earning widespread attention. Even though my rating is a full mark lower than the average, the pace of storytelling and the unsatisfactory conclusion pulls my rating back to a 7 (good, but not see-again great) out of 10. [A great love story]
Shout by FranBlockedParent2019-02-21T16:14:55Z
Moonlight’s basically my favourite film so I was really looking forward to watching Barry’s second feature and I’m sad it didn’t struck me as intensely as Moonlight did. I think much of it is due to the screenwriting which Barry contributed to but didn’t do by himself in Moonlight, unlike in this film which he wrote all on his own and for me, it was underwhelming. The pace was a bit off and dragged in some parts, but the story was still relevant. Now, what is undeniably Barry’s strong point is the beautiful way he shoots his films, and what i feel will become his signature slow motion close ups. The love story was beautiful, sure, but i feel like the issue the film deals with deserved something more dramatic. But still, I quite liked it.
8/10