Few films have harnessed the power of myth as efficiently or effectively as Queen & Slim. It feeds off the tradition of cinematic folktales while it repurposes those tropes to craft a fresh and compelling story that, for all its specificity and alarming cultural relevance, becomes an epic in its own right.
Its title characters are never actually referred to by their nicknames in the film. In fact, their real names are unknown until quite late, thanks to the news reports about them. All we know, when the movie begins, is that "he" and "she" are having an incredibly awkward first date. She is a defense attorney who had a bad day and didn't want to eat alone; he is a little too forward and eager with her, and he masticates loudly. We can tell this is their first date and their last date: his license plate says TRUSTGOD and he prays before he eats, but he's happy to suggest they continue their evening together at home. She is cold as ice, wearing a full white outfit, and content to shut him down repeatedly.
Things suddenly take a worst-case scenario turn as he is driving her home. They get pulled over by a cop for "driving erratically" and, despite their initial compliance with his clearly antagonistic racism, things get heated. When she gets out of the car to record the evil cop on her phone, his trigger-happy finger blows up the night with violence. But it is our two leads who survive the encounter, killing the cop in a moment of glorious self-defense. But Queen (I guess we can call her that?) makes the insightful claim that they will be hung out to dry by the law, not vindicated. I personally found this to be the single moment that infuriated me; the evidence at the scene should surely exonerate the two from persecution. But they decide to run, and so the legend of Queen and Slim is born.
The two leads -- Daniel Kaluuya and newcomer Jodie Turner-Smith -- drive the film magnificently both in terms of acting talent and literally, as the film turns Green Book on its head. This is a road picture, one fraught with life-and-death peril, from Ohio to Florida. Our protagonists flee to the Deep South, planning to somehow cross the big water to Cuba and live there together. Despite the change in cardinal direction, the film becomes fascinatingly analogous to an Underground Railroad. Queen and Slim have become national sensations, sparking protests and riots against police brutality, and wherever they go people recognize them, hiding them when necessary and helping them travel to a hope for freedom.
The police are never far behind, and not all black folk are sympathetic to their action or what they have come to stand for. But therein lies the film's amazing ability to make an archetypal story -- a modern odyssey -- with archetypal characters who are relentlessly their own individuals. Queen and Slim are black, sure, but they are fully fleshed characters who, the film seems determined to hammer into our heads, do not represent and can not represent all black people. They are not icons, they are not intending any of the social phenomenon that they become. But by being unapologetically themselves, they are mythic.
Moreover, it's crucial to note that Queen and Slim are not criminals. Her uncle, one of their railroad conductors, you might say, calls them the "black Bonnie and Clyde" half-jokingly, and the new and police clearly have them painted as ruthless cop killers. But their only alleged crime initially is in self-defense; there is no reason to be shot when you are pulled over for swerving once and you have no illegal substances or weapons in your possession. Their later crimes are a matter of survival, such as stealing a couple cars and gas. And, thrilling as the film is, it resides almost exclusively in moments that are not action-packed or even violent; rather, we spend most of the two-hour-plus runtime in relative silence, breathing with our protagonists and experiencing the beauty of the U.S. heartland with them.
First-time director Melina Matsoukas does some amazing work to this end, dwelling with her characters and letting us in on their sensory experience. She interposes bits of context and exposition, often including brief moments of violence, usually in terms of radio or television. Sometimes these jumps or juxtapositions feel a bit forced, sometimes a bit bizarre, but they make sense the more you give yourself over to her vision. Often awkward conversations tread an engrossing line between sensationalistic, morose, and absurdly funny, and I found it to be at once more lifelike and more profound than if the script detailed lengthy, poetic passages in heightened language. This is an earnest film, an artistic film. This is a film that buttresses its anger with tragedy, combines its dirge with its call to action, and celebrates the simple fact -- a fact that has come under assault as political propaganda by those who choose to not understand -- that black lives matter.
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