I’ve been looking forward to seeing Barry Jenkins follow up to the fabulous Moonlight for quite a while and finally did this weekend.
In reality I wanted to like this film much more than I did and while there were things to enjoy it was problematic in other areas.
Based on the novel by James Baldwin Beale Street tells the story of Tish and Fonnie a young couple who we meet with Fonnie in prison and Tish expecting their first child.
The story bounces around their lives, following their love story, the challenges of societal racism and how persecution leads ultimately to Fonnies’s incarceration, taking its time to explore the complexity and challenges that their lives present.
It is that pacing that for me was a problem, the film moves very slowly and feels as though it takes many an unnecessary detour and whilst some of those detours are pleasures in themselves they don’t really move the story a long.
That is a real pity, because at the heart of the film is a beautiful love story and Kiki Laynes and Stephen James play it brilliantly with superbly balanced, subtle performances and the film is at its best when focussed on their relationship.
Sadly though outside of that the film feels as though it to often drags and drifts from the main story telling and don’t get me wrong I don’t mind a film that meanders and is patient but for me Beale Street overstepped the boundary.
As I said I wanted to enjoy this more than I did and can easily see why those who speak highly of it do, but for me a film that could’ve been a charming love story missed the mark and felt an overly long missed opportunity.
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