IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

US, 2018, 119 minutes, Colour.
Kiki Layne, Stephan James, Regina King, Colman Domingo, Anjanue Ellis, Michael Beach, Teyonah Parris, Finn Whitrock, Ed Skrein, Diego Luna, Bryan Tyree Henry, Dave Franco.
Directed by Barry Jenkins.

Writer-director, Barry Jenkins, shot to international fame with his Oscar-winning film, Moonlight. He has followed the success with an adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel, set in 1974.

Baldwin noted that he was born in Beale Street in New Orleans. But, he adds, there is a Beale Street in every city, the African-American? neighbourhood of the city. This story is set in the Beale Street equivalent in New York City. With his well-respected novel, Baldwin makes his Beale Street talk, eloquently, about the people who live there.

The screenplay demands that the audience pay careful attention as it moves from character to character, and backwards and forwards in time. It is something of a cinema jigsaw puzzle, directing its audience to the attention of one piece, then another, gradually putting them together, getting more understanding in the light of an adjacent piece, and a new look at a situation.

At the centre of the story is a young man and a young woman. Tish (a persuasive performance from Kiki Layne) is the young woman, 18 years old, beginning to tell us her story, of her love for Fonny (Stephan James) whom she has known since childhood. Later, there are glimpses back to this childhood and friendship. However, as she begins to tell the story, the audience seeing the happy couple together, her love for him, his devotion to her, there are some puzzles. He is giving himself up – to prison? Yes, we find out. He has been falsely accused of rape.

And, for Tish, she has to tell her family that she is pregnant. She lives in a warm family, a hard-working and devoted mother (Regina King in an award-nominated performance), a genial father, supportive sister. They toast the coming child. They also invite over Fonny’s family – and quite a different reception of the news, his rogue father joyful, his very prim and proper mother, filled with religious talk and attitudes, disapproving as do his sisters. Tension.

And so, the film goes back, the friendship with the two young people turning into love, a re-creation of what happened on the night, gradually revealed, step-by-step (but not in that order). What seems idyllic, the possibility of getting a loft for Fonny to do his sculptures, all thwarted with the arrest after Tish has been accosted in a supermarket, Fonny attacking the man, the hostile white policeman, told off by the friendly storekeeper, but wanting revenge.

And also, the film goes forward, Tish visiting Fonny in prison, his love, his being upset, the months of the pregnancy. The parents consult a white lawyer, an earnest young man who is warned off taking such a case. Money has to be found to pay for the lawyer – and the two fathers get into some stealing rackets.

The woman who is the victim of the rape and has identified Fonny in a lineup (and we realise that she has been pressurised to do this by the police) has fled to Puerto Rico. Tish’s mother makes the decision to go, tracks the woman down, deals with her protector, pleads for mercy, encounters the woman in the street, and a desperate interchange.

In a way, the narrative just stops. It means then that Baldwin, Barry Jenkins, are asking the audience to reflect on what they would like to happen, how Tish will bring up the baby with the support of her family and mother, what will happen to Fonny in jail…

In many ways, Beale Street could be more effective as the novel and the time taken to read it, perhaps, a theatrical piece. But, as a film, Beale Street talks and has much to say.


1. An African- American story? The background of James Baldwin? Beale Street in New Orleans? The Beale Streets in every American city? The setting of the 70s, Baldwin’s perspective? The story taking place in New York City? The African- American heritage?

2. The work of the director, his adaptation of Baldwin’s book? Baldwin’s perspective?

3. The locations, the Beale Streets of New York City? The black area? The connections with the Whites? The African- American traditions? Extending the case to Puerto Rico? The musical score?

4. The structure and times of the film? Like a jigsaw puzzle, the audience having to put the pieces together, getting clues from flashbacks, interpreting the present? The voice-over by Tish, its effect? Her portrait of the various characters, the perspectives in her narrative?

5. The relationship between Tish and Fonny? The jigsaw puzzle effect about the relationship, moving backwards and forwards, the audience learning more about the present, going back into the past, development of particular sequences throughout the film, more insight? The children and their friendship, the scenes in the bath, the growing up together? Fonny, his jobs, stealing the tools, wanting to sculpt, seeing himself as an Artisan? Taking Tish to see the loft, the Jewish owner and his spiel? Tish and her pregnancy, Fonny going to jail? The flashbacks for the night of the conception of the child, the two walking together, the discussions, the viewing of the loft, going to the cafe, the friendship of the proprietor, going shopping, the man provoking Tish, Fonny’s violent reaction, the police, the defence by the owner of the shop? And the sexual encounter?

6. Tish’s parents, her strong mother and her support, her sister also supportive, her father? Tish telling her mother, her mother putting out the alcohol for the toast? The father’s response? Inviting Fonny’s parents and sisters, their reactions? Frank and his hard style, support? The mother, her premise, her religious background, quotations from Scripture? The two sisters supporting their mother? The interchange between everyone, Tish’s strong stances? Frank hitting his wife? His wife’s denunciation?

7. Fonny, the revelation about his case, the accusation of rape, the jigsaw presentation of the events, the reconstruction? His friendship with Danny, the discussions, the alibi? The set up by the police, the hostile policeman outside his district, the hostility from the encounter at the shop? The rape, the victim, hurtling to Puerto Rico? Giving himself up, his confidence, Tish and her prison visits, her growing desperation, his being upset, his being calm?

8. The pregnancy, its development, Tish being sick, the collapse at the prison? Her strength? Fonny’s anxiety? Tish, her strong stances, the birth and the sequence in the bath, the child, Tish’s mother?

9. Going to see the lawyer, the white lawyer, his understanding of the case, his social status and others’ reactions about his taking the case? Tracking down the victim in Puerto Rico? The need for money, Tish’s father and Frank and their stealing and making money? The mother going to Puerto Rico to find the woman, the encounter with the Hispanic, his assertiveness, protecting the woman? The focus scene on the mother and whether she would wear the wig or not? Going to the club? Having the photo, her plea, meeting with the victim, the exchange, the woman saying that the mother had never experienced a rape, the scene becoming more frantic, the woman running away? The delay of the case because she could not be called as a witness?

10. Fonny’s decision, the plea, its effect? How long would he be imprisoned? The sequence of the visit, his little boy, the drawings, talking with his father? The hope between Fonny and Tish? The future?

11. Issues of race, the African- American heritage, slavery, status in society? Hopes and possibilities?