Review of Queen & Slim (2019) by Bertaut1 — 11 Feb 2020

A powerful socio-political statement disguised as a road-movie.

White police officers killing black men is something we've seen much of in recent years, and it's been represented in films such as Fruitvale Station (2013), The Hate U Give (2018), and Widows (2018). And to that list you can now add Queen & Slim, albeit with an asterisk, because here, it's a black man killing a white police officer. But he does so only in self-defence. The film works well as a taut duo on the run story - à la They Live By (1950), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Badlands (1973), and Thelma and Louise (1991). However, underneath the genre elements, it's really a socio-political commentary that attempts to Speak Truth to Power and is fundamentally of the moment. It also happens to be a very fine film, albeit a little too long and with some tonal inconsistencies.

Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) are returning from an unsuccessful first date when they are pulled over by Officer Reed (Sturgill Simpson). Unnecessarily threatening and belligerent from the start, when Reed orders Slim to the ground, Queen attempts to start recording and Reed shoots her in the leg. Slim then tackles Reed, gets his gun, and kills him. Slim wants to remain at the scene, but Queen points out that a black man has just shot a white cop with his own gun, and if they stay, the best they can hope for is prison. And so the duo find themselves on the lam, with Slim concocting a vague plan to head south from Ohio to Miami, and ultimately on to Cuba. Meanwhile, mostly without their knowledge, they become the symbol for and inspiration behind a nationwide protest movement against racially-motivated police violence.

Queen & Slim is written by Lena Waithe and directed by Melina Matsoukas, and looks at issues such as ethnic tension, systemic racism, unchecked police violence, communal anger, and both the importance and danger of protest movements. Importantly, however, it's not a piece of social realism. On their journey from Ohio to Miami, Queen and Slim encounter a litany of black characters, all of whom know who they are, all of whom approve of what they did and treat them like folk heroes (except a mechanic (Gralen Bryant Banks) who's unimpressed with their actions). This isn't done to suggest that black identity in the US is monolithic, rather it's to make an allegorical point; it's a reference to a "them and us" mentality, an allegorical sense which is heightened with references to slave catchers, chain gangs, and the Underground Railroad.

The other major theme is the notion of legacy, which is tied into the fact that Queen and Slim are symbols for a nationwide movement. The fact that they don't see themselves as symbols, doesn't matter to the people who mythologise them. When Slim kills Reed, he and Queen flee because they assume they won't get a fair trial in a country that sees race before all else. And this assumption is what forms the basis of the movement built in their name, with black people shown as exasperated by such treatment. In such a dangerously volatile milieu, Queen and Slim provide the spark that sets the tinderbox aflame.

Waithe's screenplay does a good job of telling us who Queen and Slim are from the get-go, taking only a few moments during the opening scene to set up many of the characteristics that will prove important later. And because the scene is a first date, the dialogue can introduce such getting-to-know-you material without it seeming expositionary or inorganic. The acting is also terrific by everyone.

There are some problems though. For example, the movie inexplicably uses voiceover on occasion. But not normal voiceover - two characters will start a normal conversation and then some of the dialogue is delivered via VO, only for the normal conversation to resume again. I honestly don't know what the point is, but it sure is distracting. Some scenes are also just too fanciful - such as the one where the duo stop so Slim can ride a horse and a bizarre scene with a gas station clerk, which (I think) is supposed to be comic relief. Another poorly conceived scene, sees Matsoukas cut to Slim's father (Thom Gossom Jr.) to show us that the police are monitoring his phone. It's an entirely unnecessary scene that breaks the rigidly maintained focalisation up to this point. The film also runs about 15 minutes too long, and in its final moments, it veers very close to melodrama.

These issues notwithstanding, however, this is a strong film that works on several levels. On the one hand, it's a decent duo-on-the-run story; on the other, it's a film tuned into the socio-political frequency of the times. A snapshot of a house divided against itself, it paints a bleak picture of a group that has been pushed and prodded to the point where combustion may be unavoidable. 31% of Americans believe that a race-related Civil War will happen within their lifetime. Queen & Slim suggests they might just be correct.