Queen & Slim Review

The fugitive film Queen  & Slim is a politically charged story considering the current climate in America.

In Cleveland, Ohio, a man and a woman (Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith) go on a date. On the way home, they are stopped by a racist cop which quickly escalates with the woman getting shot in the leg and the man killing the cop in self-defence. The couple travel southwards and on their journey they discover that they become a social media sensation and resistance figures.

Race is one of the biggest fault lines in American politics. It is easy to think of cases of police brutality against African-Americans, from police breaking up the Selma Marches, to the beating of Ronnie King, to the shooting of Michael Brown. The Black Lives Matter Movement has risen in recent years in America which lead to protests and riots across the US. Queen & Slim was using this backdrop and a similar scenario for their story.

Queen & Slim is a classic outlaw tale about two people going on the run and becoming heroes, lovers, or both. It’s a story that worked with Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands, and Thelma and Louise. Queen & Slim was basically a road movie where the film was about the journey more than the destination.

Queen & Slim taps into an American tradition of outlaws being celebrated. There have been numerous cowboys like Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid, and Depression Era bank robbers like John Dillinger who were worshipped as heroes for sticking it to the establishment – even though they were violent criminals. The main characters also get worshipped by certain sectors of society as outlaw heroes because they fought back.

Director Melina Matsoukas and writer Lena Waithe were smart enough to make sure that there was moral ambiguity. The couple’s circumstances were extraordinary, the audience was aware of the justifications for the cop killing. If this scenario happened in real life the public and media would be calling for blood. Not all the people who support the man and woman were sympathetic – one man (Dickson Obahor) berated his young son and liked to use the word bitch and the woman’s uncle was a pimp. The couple’s actions inadvertently start a cycle of violence.

A mechanic (Gralen Bryant Banks) said he did not agree with the couple’s characters and stated he would have taken the ticket and I share this viewpoint. Although I will admit that my life experience is different from the characters in the film.

At the beginning of the film, the man and woman have differing personalities. The man was a passive and relaxed character, the woman was more aggressive. The woman was a belligerent who ended up escalating the conflict with the cop. If she wasn’t there then the cop stop wouldn’t have a reason to draw his gun.

During their journey to the south, the pair ends up bickering, with the woman trying to tell the man what to do. But her hard shell does get chipped away during the journey and she becomes more sympathetic. There was a tragedy in her life that still haunts her in a powerful scene when she talks about her past with the man.

Queen & Slim was Matsoukas’ feature film debut. She had experience making music videos and TV episodes. She had a lot of talent and she will properly go far. Matsoukas made Queen & Slim look and feel like an indie production – there were lots of long takes which I am a sucker for. Despite the film’s modern setting and the use of social media – the film had the look of a period piece. The characters go mostly to more run-down towns and places and the characters used older vehicles. They have to go off the grid, so have to throw their phones away and unaware of what’s going in the wider world.

One bizarre choice by the filmmakers was a couple of scenes where we could hear the inner thoughts of the characters. The characters could even hear which others’ thoughts;  it was weird for a film that had a fairly grounded tone and story.

Queen & Slim is an admirable film that tackles some heavy themes and complex moral debates and does it in an entertaining package.