Violence dehumanizes in many ways. It can do so overtly, presenting you with situations that take away nuance, throw away years of lived experience, and reduces you to your fight-or-flight response. It can also do it more covertly, where the simple threat of violence changes behavior, saddles you with labels, and ostracizes entire groups of people. A stare held too long or a comment made in the wrong tone of voice is a kind of violence, particularly when it’s backed up by historical power imbalances. It indicates tension, a desire for “correction”, and it’s often as effective as a fist.
While Queen & Slim is ostensibly about the overt effects of violence, it ends up being just as much about the covert. Its inciting incident is as straightforward as they come: two black people are driving home from a date, are pulled over by a white police officer, and are forced to shoot and kill the cop in self-defense. Anyone paying any attention to America understands how this happens and how the status quo has been broken. The black people are supposed to die, not the white person. It’s a status quo built on centuries of every kind of violence in the book, and from the minute the red and blue lights swirl behind the central pair in Queen & Slim, they are caught up in a situation that threatens to dehumanize them in almost every way possible.
The film is not about their dehumanization, though.; it’s about their humanity. We rarely leave them as they make their solitary flight across the country, and while we get a taste of the maelstrom their encounter with the cop has stirred up, we get a much better sense of who they are outside of it. That contrast is the statement of the film, and this is very much a statement film, one that sticks in your heart long after the credits roll.
Eschewing The Intellectual
The number of films speaking about the experience of black people in America have risen in recent years, or at least they have risen in prominence, putting the uniqueness of Queen & Slim in danger. Writer Lena Waithe has spoken about working on the script for years, meaning the concept predates last year’s bevy of films like BlacKkKlansman, The Hate U Give, and Sorry to Bother You. Luckily, despite revolving around many of the same themes, Queen & Slim still feels like a step in a much-needed direction where talking points aren’t explicitly explained for a white or a young audience.
Take, for instance, code-switching. The Hate U Give and Sorry to Bother You take the time to explain the act of changing your speech to suit your audience while Queen & Slim doesn’t bother. Of course code-switching happens, but it expects you to recognize it and understand the tensions that require it on your own. Extrapolate that out more broadly to other behaviors that change dependent on who you’re around and you include one of the most devastating moments in the film, which passes so quietly and understatedly that you can hear people in the theater gasp as they take in the change.
And yes, that means that I did not get everything that happen in this film. I’m a white person, after all, and this film isn’t necessarily geared towards me. But universality isn’t something every film needs, if it exists at all. We all learn the language of cinema as one that is almost always from a certain perspective. It’s far past time we start learning others, and Queen & Slim decided to do it whether we’re prepared for it or not.
Hope You Like A Story
As refreshing as this perspective is, that does not mean that the script is without faults. Waithe was clearly given a lot of freedom to do as she wanted, and apparently what she wanted was a heavy-handed narrative, one where each scene has a very pointed purpose.
That leaves the two leads, Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith, to navigate some unnatural dialogue, which they occasionally cover up remarkably well and other times are left adrift with. Kaluuya gets off a little easier, as his character is more loose and secure in himself than Turner-Smith’s, who is on a more broad journey of self-discovery.
The crux of this story and the reason we get to know them so intimately is because they are falling in love as they flee, and while this plays out in a very recognizable progression, it’s still the perfect way to subvert how the wider world is misunderstanding and boxing them in. How much the very obvious beats bother you will be subjective, but at least it matches the grandiose style director Melina Matsoukas brings to the table.
A Thing Of Beauty
To say Queen & Slim looks great is an understatement. It luxuriates every chance it gets in the pair’s love, placing them in some of America’s greatest vistas and wringing sweat from a barroom dance floor. None of this is particularly surprising given Matsoukas’ background working on music videos, but what is surprising is how well she sews these images into the narrative, creating some of the most striking and poignant moments of the year.
That’s because she’s not just making everything beautiful. Yes, their love is beautiful, but the world doesn’t know that part of their story. To the world they’ve become symbols of fear or inspiration, defined by a moment that obliterates everything else they’ve done. Matsoukas uses stark imagery to contrast their burgeoning, expansive romance with the increasingly myopic way people see them, creating moments that speak more clearly than Waithe’s clunky dialogue ever does.
Conclusion: Queen & Slim
Queen & Slim makes a societal statement out of a character piece, one that pits the intimate realities of life against a world uninterested in such self-identity.
What did you think of Queen & Slim? What moments stuck out to you?
Queen & Slim is opening in theaters in the US on November 27th, 2019 and in the UK on January 31st, 2020. For international release dates, click here.
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