Reely Bernie Faves: If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

In a capsule review, this is an immaculate novel-to-screen adaptation, breathing life through portraits made out of shots, spontaneity made out of performances, and a score made out of melancholy. Its only flaw is found in an overabundance of voiceovers—a redundancy, given the visual spell of talented Director Barry Jenkins of Moonlight (2016). However, I have to remind myself that this is a story best interpreted by thoughts turned to words when the unimaginable occurs.

In the case of If Beale Street Could Talk, the unimaginable is rooted in racial injustice, wrongful imprisonment, and social urgency.

Obviously, “Beale Street” came after To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and before Just Mercy (2020), but we’ve been witnessing the same thing, talking about the same thing, and making movies about the same thing for too long.

Director Jenkins’s interpretation offers no glorious courtroom moment or Oscar-fueled monologue against hate. Instead, in its most challenging moments, it turns the other cheek, opens its arms, and holds still with a quiet grace.

Many will rightfully name Spike Lee’s revolutionary Do the Right Thing (1989) as one of the greatest socioracial commentary films of all time, but the ending is a stick of dynamite I don’t want to touch.

The miracle of If Beale Street Could Talk is in its 1970s Harlem microcosm where love eclipses hate through the birth of a child, a telephone call through prison glass, a cherished memory of an innocent dance in a nightclub, and a walk down an empty street.

Joyce Carol Oates of the New York Times stated it perfectly: “[Beale Street] is economically, almost poetically constructed, and may certainly be read as a kind of allegory, which refuses conventional outbursts of violence, preferring to stress the provisional, tentative nature of our lives.” The miracle is that the movie chooses to be hopeful in the end when it could have fought back.

How sad that I was the only person in the theatre the day after the movie premiered.

“Born into this” is an excuse if you choose to settle into whatever “this” is.

As human beings, it is only fulfilling to look outside our comfort zone and discover different cultures, music, and, yes—movies. If Beale Street Could Talk is a book and a movie about familial strength and compassion, and we could use a lot of that these days. I still have yet to talk with someone who has seen this overlooked gem.

Have you seen it? What are your thoughts?

Reely Bernie Faves:

1. Amadeus (1984)

2. Magnolia (1999)

3. Poltergeist (1982)

4. Pulp Fiction (1994)

5. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

6. The Godfather Part II (1974)

7. Weekend at Bernie’s (1989)

8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

9. Goodfellas (1990)

10. Nosferatu (1922)

11. Pollock (2000)

12. Kicking and Screaming (1995)

13. Jaws (1975)

14. Fargo (1996)

15. Citizen Kane (1941)

16. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

17. The Endless Summer (1966)

18. Back to the Future (1985)

19. Angel Heart (1987)

20. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

21. The Goonies (1985)

22. Trainspotting (1996)

23. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

24. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

25. Bambi (1942)

26. The Paradise Lost Trilogy (1996-2011)

27. Psycho (1960)

28. Parenthood (1989)

29. Swingers (1996)

30. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

31. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

32. Smoke (1995)

33. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

34. A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

35. Edward Scissorhands (1990)

36. City of God (2002)

37. 1917 (2019)

38. Black Swan (2010)

39. School of Rock (2003)

40. Mulholland Drive (2001)

41. Groundhog Day (1993)

42. If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

43. The Greatest Showman (2017)

44. National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)

45. The Florida Project (2017)

46. Cinema Paradiso (1988)

47. So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)

48. Shadowlands (1993)

49. Steve Jobs (2015)

50. ¡Three Amigos! (1986)