QUEEN & SLIM — Movie Review
The recently released film, Queen and Slim, is essentially a retelling of Bonnie and Clyde utilizing 21st century constructs like tinder and Black Lives Matter. It first teases the viewer with a first world problem of “should I, shouldn’t I” date someone from tinder, and soon escalates into a manifesto on police brutality, Black Lives Matter and marginalized communities. There’s even a nod to the Underground Railroad with a twist- the railroad runs south not north. The film shakes up our notions of right and wrong, good and bad, and although we grimly realize early on that nothing good can come from this, we resolutely cheer on the couple who have experienced probably the worst tinder date ever.
A love story at its core, the film is about Queen and Slim, a couple who meet on tinder and go on their first date. In large part because of Daniel Kaluuuya as Slim and Jodie Turner-Smith as Queen, who smolder on screen with equal parts of swagger and vulnerability, we immediately bond with the couple and gleefully cheer on their relationship. The date takes an unexpected turn when the couple is pulled over for a minor traffic violation.
Although undoubtedly one of the most powerful moments in the film, the encounter between the couple and stereotypical racist police officer reads almost trite and formulaic. The scene seems to pander to the politicizing of police brutality; however, it is wisely limited to use only as a device to set up the events that follow.
After the stop goes horribly wrong, resulting in Slim taking the officer’s gun and shooting him in self-defense, the couple is soon on the run, and labeled as cop killers. When Queen, who is ironically a criminal defense attorney, tells Slim that their only choice is to go on the run or spend the rest of their life in prison, it makes you pity the people she represented before and wonder what law school she went too, and with that puzzling piece of advice, especially since there is video of the encounter, the couple is on the run. The couple start in Ohio and decide to travel south; they travel first to New Orleans and then to Florida, and aspire to Cuba as their final destination. The director of the film, Melina Matsoukas said that she purposefully invoked nods to runaway slaves and the Underground Railroad and chose to have the couple escape from the north to the south, rather than vice versa.
The couple is embraced and protected by the black community, and soon take on hero, or anti-hero (depending on your perspective) status. A scene in which the couple has been hidden in a crawl space could have been set in the 1800s during slavery, which is both frightening and enlightening. Another scene even took place in a bar called the “Underground,” which turned out to be a safe haven for the two characters.
The film pushes the audience members out of their comfort zone and submerges them into Queen and Slim’s accelerating journey. Yet, even in the midst of the wild ride, the audience is reminded that at its essence, the film is a love story. “I want a guy to show me myself. I want him to love me so deeply, I’m not afraid to show him how ugly I can be,” Queen tells Slim as the couple slow dance at the Underground club. Because it is such a normal date scene, its contrast with the violent backstory is particularly jarring. We, like Queen and Slim, lose ourselves in the cozy, safe womb of the Underground, but too soon we are awakened from the daze when cruel reality intervenes time and time again. As Queen and Slim fall in love with each other, we too have become invested in their love story. As the rallies and protest grow in support of the couple, we dare to imagine a happily ever after for Queen and Slim. But this is no fairy tale as we are reminded at the end of the movie.
One of the major questions that has been asked about this film is whether the film tries to do too much. There was even some criticism that Matsokas had disingenuously cashed in on the Black Lives Matter movement, and that the love story did not need to be buoyed by the social commentary of police brutality.
Chief Denise Downer McKinney, Chief of Police in Rome, Georgia said that she is troubled by the film’s message that the police are the enemy. Chief Downer McKinney said that relations between the black community and police are strained in part because of the negative way police are portrayed in movies like Queen and Slim. “I’m not suggesting that there haven’t been instances where some officers have crossed the line, and I’m not saying that there are no bad officers. But you have to also portray the overwhelming number of good officers who are out there serving and protecting people and putting their life on the line,” she said.
But, whether perception or reality, a recent Pew poll showed that Blacks are half as likely as whites to have a positive view of the job their local police are doing, with only about one third of blacks saying that police can be trusted, as opposed to three-quarters of whites. There is obviously a disconnect that the film has touched on.
The story in Queen and Slim is not new or necessarily original. But it is a compelling re-telling of something familiar driven by the performances of the two amazing lead actors. It is a road trip that is well worth the ride even if you hate the destination.
