52 Films by Women Vol 5. 7. QUEEN AND SLIM (Director: Melina Matsoukas)
Contains spoilers
There will be a
point – and we are almost there – at which singling out a film because it is
directed by a woman will no longer be necessary. I propose a benchmark: a
twelve-month period in which five films directed by women gross $100 million at
the domestic US box office. At that moment, there will be no case to answer.
Women directors will have proven themselves capable of marshalling large
budgets, being able to produce popular films (not just critically acclaimed
ones) and earning millions of dollars for the studios that either produce or
acquire the movie. This year, Amy Pascal of Sony Pictures, is seeing the fruits
of greenlighting films helmed by Elizabeth Banks, Greta Gerwig and Marielle
Heller that might just join Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers in the $100
million club. Whilst Heller’s A
Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, starring Tom Hanks as nice-guy entertainer Fred Rogers, has made a
strong start ($13 million opening weekend), Banks’ Charlie’s Angels reboot
has been a box-office disaster. We’ll find out if Gerwig’s take on Louise May
Alcott’s Little Women is a crowd-pleaser around Christmas time.
Then we have Queen and Slim, written by Lena Waithe and directed by
Melina Matsoukas, which is an unashamed B-movie - disreputable, morally
reprehensible but necessary – and a potential sleeper hit (it has grossed $19.4
million in its first nine days of release). It is the ultimate Frozen 2 counter-programmer, a film for adults with a largely black (African
American) cast. It begins with a bad date. Lawyer Angela Johnson (Jodie
Turner-Smith) has just lost a case in which her client has been executed. Using
an unnamed dating app, she has hooked up with Ernest (Daniel Kaluuya) who has
taken her to a diner. Angela hates it that the waitress got Ernest’s order
wrong – he asked for scrambled eggs. Ernest doesn’t mind. Matsoukas shows the
couple at their table occupying only one half of the screen. This is a
technique familiar from horror movies. Empty space (on screen) makes us feel
uneasy. Nothing horrifying happens here, though – it is a black-owned business,
Ernest explains, accounting for his decision to take her there. The horrifying part
happens on the drive back. Angela and Ernest have no intention of seeing each
other again. Whilst on the road, during a genial conversation, the car swerves,
attracting the attention of a white cop. He pulls them over and takes Ernest’s
licence and registration, which for the purposes of this movie is one document.
By the end of their encounter, in which the couple are outside their car and
Angela is attempting to record the incident with her cell phone, Angela is shot
in her leg and Ernest shoots the cop dead.
At this point, you
might expect that they would turn themselves in and Angela would defend them.
The cop, after all, was antagonistic and the stopping of Ernest’s car seemed
racially motivated. But instead Angela and Ernest go on the run. They don’t
expect justice; after all, this is America.
You might expect a
commercial ‘mainstream’ movie to preach aspirational politics, in which
characters achieve their goals virtuously. Not so here. Do you know how many
people saw The Hate U Give, another film about a cop shooting and the
struggle for justice by a virtuous schoolgirl? Not enough. The America of 2019
is a country where the heroes behave as disreputably as the establishment, but
with better cause, because they have a limited means of defence. This, however,
is a dangerous tactic, because it allows the establishment to demonise them, to
call them un-American.
Whilst on the run,
with her leg in a makeshift tourniquet, Angela makes all the key decisions,
heading to her Uncle Earl’s house where she demands a place to stay, a car and
some money – but not all at once. Earl (Bokeem Woodbine) also gives her name of
someone who can help. Ernest watches his car – and the shoes in the trunk –
burn. For the most part, the couple have no cash. You note though that every
stop includes the question, ‘want something to eat?’
Ernest learns that
Angela cut her lawyer teeth by defending her father after he killed her mother.
It was an accident. They were arguing and Angela’s mother fell down the stairs.
Angela trained herself in dispassion but hates where she came from when she and
Ernest overhear Earl argue with his scantily clad female companion over a
missing ring. Why would the woman take it?
The loaner car runs
out of gas and the couple are helped by a kindly white off-duty sheriff. The
man is so kind that he even offers to buy them gasoline and a plastic jug. Once
Ernest sees his badge, he points a gun at the sheriff and locks him in the boot
of their car, taking the sheriff’s truck. This eventually overheats.
There is also an
early scene where the couple end up in a garage and Ernest points a gun at the
teller. ‘I’ll let you have gas for free if you let me hold it,’ the teller explains,
apparently bored by his McJob. Inexplicably, Ernest hands over the gun. The
teller points it at Ernest. ‘What are you doing?’ he asks, then allows his
voice to rise in a panic. ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ Clearly not
allowing Kaluuya to get an acting award nomination. Surprisingly, the teller is
as good as his southern-twanged word.
The couple take the car
to a garage. The owner says it will cost $2,500 to repair. He knows who they
are. Ernest continues his support of black-owned businesses by not haggling too
much over the price. A young boy, Junior (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) who hangs
around the garage takes Ernest and Angela’s picture.
Matsoukas and Waithe
know that the audience needs incident to stay interested - earlier we had the
‘change our appearance beard shave and haircut’ scene. Ernest decides to take
Angela dancing. They enter a bar where all eyes are fixed on them as if they
were Beyoncé Knowles and Jay-Z just swinging by for a visit. Ernest goes to the bar
to get a drink for Angela. He doesn’t drink himself, but the bartender gives
him two glasses – and on the house too. Ernest swigs his drink alongside
Angela. Theirs is a desperate situation.
Shooting a cop after
the police officer shot first and locking a sheriff in the trunk (in the UK we
say boot) may be reprehensible, but Matsoukas and Waithe push the envelope
further – and there’s a money shot in it. Matsoukas cuts between Ernest and
Angela having sex in the car and Junior standing up to the police during a demonstration. The officer is
black and kindly. Junior points a gun at him and then – as if inspired by
Angela and Ernest – shoots. This is a statement. No police officer can be
treated as benign. They are all the enemy.
This is an ‘I can’t
believe they showed that’ moment – a transgression. However, to show how far
race relations in America has declined post-Obama, it isn’t enough to lament.
You show characters driven to action. Interestingly, though, Matsoukas didn’t
show a girl pulling the trigger. She conforms to gender stereotypes. Boys are
used to holding guns. Of course, they must discharge them. The teller in the
garage on the other hand – he’s not a man (or so it is inferred).
The ending of Queen and Slim is inevitable. The couple may be obsessed
with ‘a body of water’ – crossing the ocean to get to Cuba (where they can
really stretch their lack of funds). We know the police will catch up with
them, but not how. There is a $250,000 bounty on each of their heads. What sort
of person would betray them?
There is a white
couple, Mr and Mrs Shepherd (Flea, Chloë Sevigny) who prove quite helpful, owning a
guest bedroom with a secret compartment spacious enough for two – so Angela and
Ernest evade police detection. Ernest’s father also won’t give them away –
Ernest doesn’t heed Angela’s advice and phones home; after all his name begins
with an ‘E’ and ends with a ‘T’.
In the time-honoured
tradition of B-movies, the subversive stuff is all in the middle of the movie –
the meat of the sandwich. It plays to a black audience. Matsoukas and Waithe
anticipate hoots and hollers and even, during sequences when the couple are on
the road, their audience snacking whilst watching (‘want something to eat’).
Ernest and Angela
live their relationship to the full – within certain parameters. Angela hangs
out of the window as their car passes over a bridge and then invites Ernest to
do the same. His grip isn’t as firm as Angela’s, but he steadies himself and catches
the wind.
In the film’s final
image there is an evocation of Bonnie
and Clyde. The couple, Angela
and Ernest, the Queen and Slim of the title, acquire gangster chic. It is nice
to imagine that, fifty years from now, Daniel Kaluuya will announce the Best
Picture winner and name the wrong movie.
Reviewed at
Cineworld Leicester Square, Super Screen, ‘Surprise Movie 13’, Tuesday 3
December 2019, 19:45 screening.
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