Review of If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) by Didntloveit — 16 Feb 2019

Another horror movie from Barry Jenkins. Just like Moonlight, the world it depicts has a claustrophobic feeling. Nearly every shot is a close up and it seems Jenkins does not believe in establishing shots.

I found myself angry at the film maker while watching the movie because the characters, actors, story, and costumes were wonderful. However, undercutting all of that was music that was too loud and often conveyed a sense of foreboding and the moments of brightness were overwhelmed by bleakness.

The movie is fairly slow-paced and so during the scenes when time slows down even more were just excruciating for me, as they only ratcheted up my fears of something tragic happening. From the beginning I was trying to figure out what the timescale of the this movie would be and I really stopped wondering until the scene in the jail when Fonny's face has cuts all over it.

But this point, I thought that the film must be ending soon and I was sure that he was going to commit suicide, or that the baby would die, or that the father's would go to jail or be killed because they were selling stolen merchandise to make money to pay for Fonny's defense efforts.

I find Jenkins filmmaking style to be very alienating.