Film

Dark Waters

01/03/20

This film is something of a departure for director Todd Haynes, a far cry from the languid luminosity of Carol or Far From Heaven. Instead, he offers us a compelling exposé, a true story told with a devastating urgency.

Because there’s no getting away from it: this is urgent. Based on Nathaniel Rich’s New York Times article, The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare, it tells of corporate greed and negligence on a shocking scale. So far, so depressingly predictable. But there’s more: a dastardly cover-up designed to protect profits at all costs. And the costs are high.

DuPont is a massive company, and one of their most successful products is Teflon. Yes, that Teflon, the stuff that makes your pans non-stick and waterproofs your raincoat. There’s no denying its usefulness, nor its ubiquity. Unfortunately, it also turns out that there’s no denying the toxic nature of one of its components, namely PFOA, a ‘forever chemical’ that is very difficult to break down, no matter how it is disposed of. Not that DuPont have proved themselves too worried about its disposal: they’ve just dumped it in landfill, allowing it to pollute the water.

I should confess here that chemistry is not my strong point. Luckily, the script makes clear that hero lawyer Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) is also a bit deficient in the arena of scientific-understanding; he needs the basics explaining, which gives us the chance to learn alongside him. Where Bilott does excel, though, is in the law – and in tenacity, morality and grit.

The movie is unflinching in its revelations, detailing Bilott’s response to farmer Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp)’s out-of-the-blue request for help. Tennant is not Bilott’s typical client; he’s an environmental lawyer, yes, but of the corporate variety, more used to defending chemical companies than suing them. But Tennant’s evidence is both disturbing and irrefutable: DuPont’s landfill, bordering his farm, has visibly contaminated his creek; his cattle are sick and mad and dying at an alarming rate.

Despite DuPont’s attempt to forestall and stymie his investigations, Bilott persists, and discovers that DuPont have known about the potentially lethal nature of their product for decades. And it’s not just the cows: women working on the Teflon line have given birth to babies with distinctive facial deformities. It’s a poison.

It’s terrifying.

PFOA wasn’t a banned substance then. It is now. But lots of other, similar substances are not. And surely no one on earth is naïve enough to believe that there aren’t countless other companies committing countless other atrocities in pursuit of the mighty dollar, no matter how many of us are endangered by their greed? The 1% don’t even see the rest of us; we’re incidental to them, and if we’re damaged, we’re just collateral.

Yup, this is a spectacularly squalid and depressing tale, as dark and dingy as the cinematography. But there are a few beacons of hope: there is the irascible, taciturn Tennant; there is Bilott, his wife, Sarah (Anne Hathaway), and his boss, Tim Perp (Tim Robbins) – all determined to do the right thing despite the personal costs. A few good people really can make a difference.

And at least in the US they can reach a wide audience, via the robust journalism in some of their broadsheets and through their powerful movie industry. No wonder Todd Haynes felt he had no choice but to make this vital, disturbing film.

4.5 stars

Susan Singfield

True History of the Kelly Gang

28/02/20

True confession. When I was a much younger man, I was obsessed with the story of Ned Kelly. I read several accounts of his exploits, which gripped my imagination and, in 1970, saw Tony Richardson’s underrated biopic, which – once I got used to Mick Jagger’s alarming ‘Oirish’ accent – had me fully onboard. I even watched Heath Ledger’s fairly forgettable attempt to embody Australia’s best known folk hero in 2003. What is it about the infamous outlaw that continues to exert such a powerful hold?

In True History of the Kelly Gang (loosely based on Peter Carey’s Booker-winning novel, which I’ve also read), director Justin Kurzel doesn’t so much reinvent Kelly’s history as place a bomb under all that we know about the man and blow it to smithereens.

To give him his due, the resulting film, which is neatly divided into three chapters, is for the most part gripping. We open in the 1860s, where a young Ned (Orlando Schwert) is living in the outback in absolute squalor. He’s in thrall to his manipulative mother, Ellen (Essie Davis), who is turning tricks for the local constabulary in the shape of Sgt O’ Neil (Charlie Hunnam) in order to put food into the mouths of her children. Ned soon finds himself apprenticed to the outwardly charming bush ranger, Harry Power (an excellent Russell Crowe), and is schooled in the ways of the outlaw and the doctrines of toxic masculinity.

In the second section, the adult Ned (George Mckay) returns from a long spell in prison to find his mother still ruling the roost and living with a Californian horse thief, who has enlisted Ned’s brother into his trade. During a visit to the local brothel, Ned meets up with Constable Fitzpatrick (Nicholas Hoult) and with Mary Hearn (an underused Thomasin McKenzie), with whom he promptly falls in love. This second section is already starting to feel rather strange. Ned appears to be dressed in suspiciously contemporary style: he sports a dodgy mullet and has a predilection for writhing around half naked, like an embryonic Iggy Pop. Kurzel seems to be invoking parallels with the British punk rock movement here and images of Kelly looking suitably aggressive in front of a Union Jack reinforce this notion. Still, so far, the conceit works brilliantly.

It’s in the third section where everything becomes spectacularly unhinged. Kelly’s sudden descent into apparent madness overwhelms the material. The Kelly gang run around in dresses – seemingly a reference to groups of Irish agrarian rebels, known as The Sons of Sieve. They blacken their faces, enlist followers and launch an ill conceived attempt to attack a train full of police officers. The famous suits of armour (always, I think, the most fascinating aspect of Kelly’s story) barely get a look in. Mayhem descends but, unfortunately, so does bewilderment.

In the end, it all feels too self-consciously weird – and apparent luminosity of the ranks of police officers, appearing in the climactic gun battle, is just too opaque for comfort. While I applaud Kurzel for having the guts to take on such a revered Australian institution in so fearless a manner, I have to conclude that this feels like a bold experiment that doesn’t quite work.

3.6 stars

Philip Caveney 

The Call of the Wild

23/02/20

Jack London’s 1903 novel, The Call of the Wild is a classic adventure story – though I suspect it’s much better known in America than it is here in the UK. It’s been filmed several times over the years, but what makes Chris Sanders’ 2020 version different from its predecessors is that all the canines featured here are CGI creations. (At least there’s no need for a ‘no animals were harmed in the making of this film’ caption.) For the most part, you wouldn’t know it if you hadn’t been told, but there are ocasional moments when something doesn’t look quite right, usually when the filmmaker’s desire to anthropomorphise his doggy cast slightly oversteps the mark.

It’s 1897 and Buck, a St Bernard/Collie cross, is the beloved pet of a California-based judge. Buck is adorable but extremely clumsy, always managing to leave a trail of devastation in his wake. It’s therefore hard to believe that his owner sheds too many tears when Buck is dog-napped and sent to Alaska, where the gold rush has created a lively market for his sort.

Initially Buck becomes a member of a sled team, taking the mail to far flung parts of the Yukon, under the command of the kindly Perrault (Omar Sy) and Françoise (Cara Gee). But a dog’s fortunes can change and he soon finds himself owned by the cruel, dastardly, gold-obsessed Hal (Dan Stevens), and  – later on – by the (much nicer) John Thornton (Harrison Ford), who has come out to the wilderness after a family tragedy.

It’s all handsomely mounted with sweeping landscapes and big skies and you’ll probably  find yourself pining for the wide open spaces and the Northern Lights. The story however, is somewhat fitful, most exciting in its earlier stretches (a sequence where the mail sled has to outrun an avalanche is so thrilling that it unbalances the movie somewhat). Later on, the tale becomes decidedly more somnolent as Thornton seeks solace in drink and Buck acts as his canine conscience. Those familiar with the novel will know that, through the last act, Buck is increasingly impelled to interract with the local timber wolves. This final stretch has, for understandable reasons, been changed somewhat from the original tale, but – as a result – feels a little too foreshadowed for comfort.

Niggles aside, this is a thoroughly decent adaptation, particularly suitable for younger viewers, though I can’t see it dragging too many of them away from the comic book franchises which still hold sway over their affections. Lovers of the orginal novel will, I’m sure, feel that Jack London’s brainchild has been treated with the respect it deserves.

3.5 stars

Philip Caveney

Greed

22/02/20

Steve Coogan’s regular collaborations with director Michael Winterbottom always yield interesting results. There’s the iconic 24 Hour Party People, the various iterations of The Trip, the splendidly labyrinthine A Cock and Bull Story – but none of these can quite prepare a viewer for the caustic evisceration of venture capitalism that is Greed. The film isn’t subtle in its approach; on the contrary, it goes in with all guns blazing and neatly obliterates its chosen targets.

Coogan plays Sir Richard ‘Greedy’ McCreadie, a man who has positioned himself as a major player in the fashion industry, mostly by virtue of being meaner and crueller than the competition. As he approaches his sixtieth birthday, he finds his image smeared by bad publicity, so he decides to throw a Gladiator-themed birthday bash on the Greek island of Mykonos. He invites his ex-wife – and titular head of his company – Samantha (Isla Fisher), his new partner (Shanina Shaik), his aged mother (Shirley Henderson), his son, Finn (Asa Butterfield), and a whole host of VIPs. The event will be staged as a gladitorial extravaganza, which naturally involves building a Roman ampitheatre and will even feature a lion called Clarence. What could go wrong?

Through the ensuing confusion wanders the hapless Nick (David Mitchell, pretty much playing himself). He’s Sir Richard’s chosen biographer, clearly struggling to put together a sympathetic portrait of an odious subject – though he does find some solace in his brief exchanges with personal assistant, Cathy (Pearl Mackie), who has her own reasons for hating her boss. McCreadie is a man who complains that the local beach is occupied by ‘unsightly’ Syrian refugees, a man who – instead of paying them to make themselves scarce (which would be bad enough) – tricks them into working as his waiters, complete with Roman slave costumes. With his slicked back grey hair and outlandishly capped teeth, McCreadie is quite clearly styled on Sir Philip Green, right down to the appropriation of his workers’ pension funds, the profits from which go straight into the purchase of yet another luxury yacht. If anybody on the planet had an ounce of sympathy left for Green, this film will neatly extinguish it.

Winterbottom (who also wrote the screenplay) makes no bones about his utter contempt for his subject. Though he examines McCreadie’s formative years, when he was card-sharping his way through boarding school, there’s never any attempt to create sympathy for the character. He is, quite simply, the product of privilege – an arrogant, hateful man addicted to the aquisition of more and more wealth, for no better reason than the fact that he has a natural ability for it. Though Coogan often has some amusing lines, its easier to laugh at McCreadie than with him.

Greed has been widely criticised for a scattershot approach to its central subject, but it’s fueled by an almost incandescent sense of anger, a disgust that creatures like McCready are allowed to exist and prosper in a world that ought to have the sense to depose them The closing credits offer a horrifying list of statistics about the world’s wealth, but they are hardly necessary. The film has already instilled a feeling of utter shame.

4.7 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Emma.

14/02/20

Some people bemoan their prevalence, but I don’t object to remakes of classics, so long as they’re done well. Little Women was one of my favourite films of 2019, with Greta Gerwig demonstrating exactly how worthwhile such revisitings can be. I like the vim and vigour that seems to be on-trend, the opening up of old favourites to a brand new audience.

Admittedly, I’m puzzled – and a little irked – by the addition of a full stop to Emma.. It seems affected, a bit try-hard. I’m hardly mollified by the explanations I find on-line either: there’s a ‘period’ because it’s a period drama (doh!) or – worse – this is the final, definitive version of the tale. (No, that would be the book.)

Still, I’m keen to see Emma., particularly as the poster, trailer and cast list hint at something sprightly and fun. I love Jane Austen’s novel, and have enjoyed a range of adaptations (Clueless, obviously, is the best). Eleanor Catton is also a writer I admire. But, sadly, neither her script nor Autumn de Wilde’s direction offer us anything more than a pretty confection.

Speaking of which, there is a lot of pretty confectionary in this film, with towering four or five-layer cakes present on almost every table (disappointingly, we never see them cut; I’d like to know what they look like inside). The dresses are gorgeous too, and the furnishings. In fact, it’s all rather ravishing, but there’s almost no substance – an empty edifice, just like the cakes.

It never feels real. Every emotion seems transient, every slight soon forgotten. Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy) is, as we know, handsome, clever and rich. She’s unbound by the need to marry, as she is financially secure, and anyway, her father (Bill Nighy) needs her at home. To stave off the boredom of wandering around a big posh house and wearing nice frocks, she decides to indulge in a spot of match-making. But it takes Emma some time to realise that other people aren’t as privileged as her, and that her meddling can cause them actual hardship. For a modern audience, this is a problematic narrative, with its underlying assertion that we should all know our place. But this is never addressed, not even obliquely; in fact, if I didn’t know the source material, I don’t think I’d be able to ascertain the social hierarchy at all. The costumes don’t make it clear, nor do the characters’ interactions. Just sometimes we are told that a character is poor, or that their prospects aren’t too good.

The characters aren’t defined enough, either, especially the men. The differences between Mr Knightley (Johnny Flynn), Mr Elton (Josh O’Connor) and Frank Churchill (Callum Turner) are barely perceptible; in the novel, the three are worlds apart. In fact, although Flynn performs well in the role, I don’t think the script even makes clear who Knightley is; I’ll wager many a newcomer to the story assumes he’s Emma’s brother at first.

Mia Goth is the standout, imbuing the unfortunate Harriet Smith with real charm and naïvety. Her nervous reverence for Emma is perfectly drawn. Miranda Hart also puts in a decent turn as Miss Bates, offering us the film’s only real moment of authentic emotion and poignancy.

All in all, this feels like an opportunity missed, a waste of talent and potential.

2.9 stars

Susan Singfield

Bait
BAIT film still

11/02/20

We think we’ve missed Bait but, as we walk past the Odeon on Lothian Road this morning, Philip notices there’s a screening at 11am. We’re not working today, and the sky is too full of sleet to make outdoor pursuits attractive. So in we go, down a spiral staircase and into a crowded cinema.

The film is about to start. We’re barely settled in our seats before the opening credits roll, and this foreboding tale begins. We find ourselves in a tiny Cornish village, where Martin (Edward Rowe) is a fisherman scratching a living without a boat. He works tirelessly, using a beach seine and a single lobster pot, selling his catch door-to-door, saving the cash payments in a tin marked ‘Boat.’ His brother, Steven (Giles King), has repurposed their late father’s vessel as a tourist tripper, but Martin wants no part in that enterprise. He’s resentful of the rich incomers, epitomised by Sandra and Tim (Mary Woodvine and Simon Shepherd), who’ve bought up all the pretty quayside properties so they can rent them out to others like themselves (‘One of them was so posh, I honestly thought he was German,’ says Wenna (Chloe Endean), a local teenage barmaid, frustrated by the hordes of outsiders, making her feel like a stranger in her own locale). The tension is palpable. Clearly something has to give.

It’s only six days since we saw The Lighthouse, and there are some obvious comparisons. Both are shot in black and white with a square-ish frame (albeit slightly different ratios). They’re both slow and brooding, too, with minimal dialogue and brutally realistic depictions of manual work. But Bait is a far superior film, at once broader in outlook and more particular.

It’s utterly compelling, the extended silences are excruciating, the characterisation painfully believable. The moneyed visitors are blinkered, ignorant of the devastation their presence has wrought on this small community, confident that their payments entitle them to what they want. But they’re not caricatures: we witness Sandra’s guilt as she glimpses what Martin is up against; we hear Tim’s justification about the business he’s bringing to the village he has grown to love. It’s just that the two ways of life are incompatible and, as ever, it’s the poor and working class who end up dispossessed.

Although the setting is contemporary, the film looks like a 1950s documentary, all scratchy  and old-fashioned, adding to the sense that what Martin wants is – irrevocably – in the past. His nephew, Neil (Isaac Woodvine), hankers after what is gone as well, although that doesn’t stop him hooking up with Sandra’s daughter, Katie (Georgia Ellory), much to her brother Hugo (Jowan Jacobs)’s dismay. The scene is set for a perfect storm…

Bait is a splendid example of low-budget independent film-making, and writer/director Mark Jenkin is clearly one to watch.

4.6 stars

Susan Singfield

A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood

10/02/20

The main problem with Marielle Henner’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood for UK audiences is one of recognition. TV presenter Mister Rogers was a key part of the formative years of millions of children across America. Imagine if you will, Brian Cant from Play Away and Geoffrey from Rainbow – bundled into one avuncular package – and you’ll have some idea of the kind of person we’re talking about. And who do you get to play one of the nicest guys in history? Well, Tom Hanks, obviously.

But actually this story is mostly about Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a journalist for Esquire magazine and a man with deep family issues – the kind that lead to him having a fist fight with his father, Jerry (Chris Cooper) at his sister’s wedding, for example. He’s clearly not a happy bunny. He’s also a new dad, struggling to come to terms with his baby son’s needs and leaving most of the heavy lifting to his wife, Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson).

When Lloyd is dispatched to interview and write a feature on the aforementioned Fred Rogers, he’s initially horrified. He’s more the kind of writer to pen a character assassination than a puff piece. He’s convinced that Rogers must have some dark and nasty secret. (Looking back at many of my childhood heroes, I’m with him on this one.) So imagine his surprise when it turns out that Fred Rogers is every bit as nice as his TV persona. Indeed, according to Rogers, there is no persona. What you see is what you get.

And the more Lloyd spends time with him, the more the hard-bitten journalist begins to heal…

This is a warm hug of a movie, which attempts to walk a perilous tightrope between emotion and corn (if it occasionally strays into the latter, well perhaps that’s just my cynical Brit personality kicking in). There’s actually quite a lot to like here. I particularly enjoy the use of shonky scale models whenever the proceedings venture outside – models like this were an integral ingredient of Mister Roger’s Neighbourhood – and there are nice performances from all concerned.

But, perhaps not surprisingly, it’s Hanks who takes the lion’s share of the attention here, portraying Fred Rogers as an intense, engimatic and (it must be said) faintly creepy guy, who appears to have the wisdom of the ages simmering quietly within him. Check out the moment when Fred and Lloyd enjoy ‘a minute’s silence’ in a cafe. For a very long space of time, Hanks just stares intently into the camera lens and somehow succeeds in giving me chills. Odd then, that his recent Oscar nomination was in the ‘best supporting actor’ category.

This is by no means a perfect film, and better knowledge of its subject matter would help no end, but it’s nonetheless worth catching, even if (like us, on this snowy Edinburgh afternoon) you have to walk through a blizzard to see it. A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood? That’s rich!

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Parasite

07/02/20

I’ve long been a fan of South Korean director Bong Joon-ho. His 2006 film, The Host remains one of my all-time favourite creature features, while both Okja and Snowpiercer, though not perfect, are the work of a director who’s always ready to break new ground and look for the unexpected in every situation. With Parasite, however, he takes a giant step into the stratosphere. This is filmmaking at its most inventive. Little wonder it’s hotly tipped to lift the Oscar for best international film and, possibly,  the biggest prize of them all.

It’s the story of two families – one poor, one rich – and their interactions with each other. The Ki family are down-on-their luck, all four of them unemployed, living a squalid existence in a stinkbug-infested basement and reduced to hacking the wifi signals of their neighbours in order to find out what’s happening in the world.

Then young Ki-woo (Choi Woo-sik) is unexpectedly handed a lifeline by his student friend, who asks him to take over as English tutor to the daughter of a wealthy family, the Parks, who live in a super-swish uptown house. Ki-woo is not qualified to do the work, but his sister, Ki-jung (Park So-dam), is a dab hand on the computer and easily runs him up some fake documentation. He charms the gullible Yeon-kyo (Cho Yeo-jeong) into employing him and, when he finds out that her troubled young son has artistic aspirations, Ki-woo seizes the opportunity to bring in his sister as an ‘art tutor’ called Jessica.

From there, it isn’t long before the conniving kids have managed to instal their father as the family’s chauffeur and their mother as a replacement for the Park’s long-term housekeeper. So far, what we have is a very enjoyable story about a cunning deception, played for laughs and endlessly inventive as the home invaders, driven by the desperation of their own poverty, use ever more complicated ruses to assert their dominance over their rich employers.

But it’s at this point that the story takes a much darker turn, stepping in out of left field and slapping the viewer hard. It would be a crime to reveal anything more of the plot; suffice to say that what emerges is a brilliant study of class and privilege – an examination of the harsh, uncrossable wastelands that lie between the haves and the have-nots. The brilliance of the script is that you still feel sympathy for the confidence tricksters, no matter what depths they sink to in order to maintain their deception. Neither are the Parks depicted as monsters; they are just over-privileged, and oblivious to the fact that they’re treating their employees as disposable commodities.

As the story gallops towards its shocking climax, there’s barely time to catch your breath – and there’s a wistful, aching coda that has me leaving the cinema with a tear in my eye. Parasite is not only a landmark event for Asian cinema, it’s the work of a brilliant director at the height of his game. Those who are put off by subtitles should note that it really doesn’t matter here. See this version, before the inevitable American remake appears.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

The Lighthouse

05/02/20

It’s always frustrating, isn’t it, when others commend the work of a particular director and – for the life of you – you just don’t see what they love about it?

I’ve felt like that about Quentin Tarantino, pretty much since Pulp Fiction onwards; more recently, I really didn’t care for Robert Eggers’ debut film, The Witch, which many respected critics hailed as nothing short of a masterpiece. Now here’s his sophomore effort, The Lighthouse, which arrives in cinemas virtually creaking beneath the weight of the many superlatives that have been heaped upon it. Of course I have to give him a second chance, right?

This doom laden two-hander, shot in grainy black and white on 35mm stock and projected in a claustrophobic 1:19:1 aspect ratio, concerns the story of two ‘wickies,’ despatched to a remote lighthouse off the coast of New England, where they are to live and work for a month. Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) is an old hand, who lords it over new recruit Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson), making him take on most of the menial duties while he reserves the tending of the light itself as his own personal privilege. He also mentions that Winslow’s predecessor went mad after seeing some ‘enchantment in the light’ and hints that something bad happened to him.

The two men embark on their dull and thankless routine, which is depicted in punishing detail. Wake is a drinker of alcohol and, though Winslow resists the temptation to join him at first, he soon succumbs. When a terrible storm maroons the men long past the time when they should have been heading back to the mainland, madness and depravity rapidly descend upon them…

Sadly, I am left completely unstirred by what ensues. Here is a ‘horror’ movie that completely fails to generate any sense of threat, an allegory that cloaks its meaning to an irritating degree. What we’re left with is a study of two tedious examples of toxic masculinity, who spend most of the time in silence and then ramble away in what Eggers insists is an aproximation of the language of the late 19th century, but which is mostly rendered unintelligible by the over-enthusiastic sound effects. They fight a bit too. And sing. And dance.

Winslow’s character has recurring dreams (possibly memories, it’s never entirely clear) of discovering a mermaid and having sex with her – sadly that appears to be the only role for a woman in this film – and there are visions of tentacles, floating logs and a severed head that might just belong to Winslow’s predecessor.

There are various attempts to allude to classical elements. The killing of a bird presaging disaster is surely a nod to The Ancient Mariner, while a climactic image seems to refer to the myth of Prometheus. But honestly, there’s so little incident in this film’s one hour, forty-nine minute run, that I spend most of my time feeling as bored as its two protagonists. Dafoe and Pattinson are both excellent actors, but neither is given enough to do here (unless you count Wake’s unbridled flatulence) and, when the final credits roll, I leave wondering, once again, what it is about Eggers that generates so much adoration?

I really wanted to like this film. And I gave it my best shot. Honestly.

2 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Queen & Slim

31/01/20

In one scene in Queen & Slim, a character refers to the two leads as ‘the black Bonnie and Clyde’ – and it’s true that the spirit of Arthur Penn’s notorious 1967 crime drama hangs inescapably over this production. However, it shouldn’t be overlooked that, while Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were small time opportunist crooks whose legend outgrew them, Angela Johnson (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Ernest Hinds (Daniel Kaluuya) are just two young black people in the wrong place at the wrong time. As for that odd title, we don’t even learn the characters’ real names until the film’s conclusion. Quite how they earn their titular monikers is anybody’s guess, but I’ll go with it for simplicity’s sake.

When we first encounter Queen and Slim, they are in Cleveland, Ohio, and struggling through an awkward first date, arranged via Tinder. She is a lawyer, miserable after losing a court case, and seeking solace from human company. He is just a happy-go-lucky guy, hoping for a bit of love action and refusing to complain when the scrambled eggs he’s ordered are delivered fried. As a couple, they aren’t exactly hitting it off, so they get into Slim’s car and head for Queen’s apartment, where Slim is clearly still hoping that things might develop further.

But the situation goes catastrophically awry when they are pulled over for a minor traffic violation and a racist white cop pulls a gun on them. In  the ensuing confusion, Queen is grazed by a bullet and, in self-defence, Slim shoots the officer dead.

Slim is all for calling the cops and facing the music, but Queen assures him that no black man can ever hope for a fair trial in such a situation. She ought to know; this is her area of expertise. She insists that they get in the car and drive South to New Orleans. They even discuss the possibility of crossing the water to Cuba.

And so a long Southbound odyssey begins. The couple encounter various characters along the way, and there’s a notable stopover with Queen’s Uncle Earl (Bokeem Woodbine), a gold-adorned pimp who owes Queen a major favour. Wherever they go, they realise that people are recognising them despite the fact that they have taken steps to radically change their appearances. It transpires that footage from the dead cop’s dashboard cam has somehow found its way onto social media and gone viral. Support for the fugitives begins to grow across America. Meanwhile, the police are attempting to track them down and have even offered a substantial reward for information leading to their arrest.

This is mostly an entertaining road trip with a powerful central message about inequality. Both Turner-Smith and Kaluuya are engaging performers and, as the couple’s relationship begins to blossom, so we begin to learn a little more about them. Melina Matsoukis’s direction is pretty solid too, though – on what is her first feature film – she makes a few missteps, sometimes allowing the momentum to stall, occasionally trying little arty flourishes that don’t quite come off . Furthermore, the screenplay by Lena Waithe contains elements that don’t always entirely convince: occasionally there’s the feeling that certain details may have been lost in the edit. The film’s conclusion feels somehow horribly inevitable. Would it have been more empowering to buck the trend and offer something a tad more optimistic?

Still, for a debut feature, this is pretty impressive stuff and feels like another useful addition to the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney