“Beale Street” celebrates its free TV premiere: a strong film with a major weakness

“Beale Street” celebrates its free TV premiere
A strong film with a major weakness

In 1964, the United States passed the Civil Rights Act, which made racial segregation illegal in public institutions. In the same year, the African-American human rights activist Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Both great achievements on paper. For the first time in its young history it seemed as if the “land of the free and home of the brave” had earned its grandiose name. But films like “Beale Street”, which celebrates its free TV premiere on 3sat on September 18th, urgently remind us that this was not the case a long time later – and still is not.

A fateful love

Harlem, 1970s: Alonzo “Fonny” Hunt (Stephan James, 27, “Selma”) and Tish Rivers (KiKi Layne, 29) have known each other their entire lives, still so young. And even if they didn’t know until much later, they always felt: We are made for one another. What does it matter that his over-religious family views their tender love with suspicion, that she comes from a poor background and that both of them do not yet know exactly what the future holds apart from each other? It is not money worries or family disputes that turn out to be the greatest problem of their happiness, but the most banal and at the same time most frustrating aspect: their skin color.

Despite being unable to commit the crime, Fonny is jailed for raping a Puerto Rican woman. Tish and her family are certain that their testimony was made under the massive influence of a white police officer. But to prove that not only costs a lot of strength and elbow use, but money. But that doesn’t stop her from going into the unequal fight – especially since Tish is pregnant and her child should definitely not grow up without Fonny. In addition, as her father Joseph (Colman Domingo, 51) stated at one point, optimistically: “We have never had money our entire lives – why should we suddenly worry about it now?”

Happiness is a butterfly stroke away

Love couldn’t be more innocent than between Fonny and Tish. Director Barry Jenkins (41) stages their relationship on the one hand with subtle, shy looks, on the other hand with crystal-clear declarations of love: “I will never hurt you,” promises the 22-year-old Fonny to his table, shortly before they sleep together for the first time. Contrary to many a lovable youngster who just wants to get his flame into bed, he is serious. Tish feels that, the viewer feels that.

Cut. Their inseparability now separates something: the pane of glass in the prison’s visitor room, in which Fonny finds himself. Only then does he find out that he will be a father in about six months – and despite his predicament he breaks out into happy laughter. He is sure that God will not allow his family happiness to be destroyed in such an unjust way. To have to state a little later: The ways of the Lord are unfathomable.

Ensemble is convincing almost without exception

The performances by Fonny actors Stephan James and KiKi Layne (Tish) deserve special mention. Director Jenkins sometimes fills the screen with their faces in the center of attention, in which one can credibly read every emotion a person is capable of, from initial optimism to sheer despair. So, even in the darkest hours, a hearty laugh creeps in between the two of them. How it is necessary when everything around you falls apart.

Actress Regina King (50), who plays Tish’s mother Sharon, received the Oscar for “Best Supporting Actress” for her part. Her character fights on fronts where her daughter cannot: for example in Puerto Rico to talk to the father of the rape victim – briefly but great played by “Game of Thrones” star Pedro Pascal (46). King earned her Oscar for their heartbreaking conversation at a restaurant table.

Meanwhile, Fonny’s relatives, especially his mother and two sisters, seem much too exaggerated. Their despicable religious fanaticism is conveyed with a crowbar in such a way that the viewer almost sympathizes with Fonny’s father when he gives his wife a violent blow. And that doesn’t work at all. As delicately as Jenkins offers love, the criticism of religion is clumsy – and thus through.

Relevant social criticism to this day

He does better with social criticism. Fonny and Tish live in a time when they see it as sad but normal everyday life to be discriminated against. Which makes the injustice happening to them all the more serious. “What’s the catch?”, Fonny wonders when, after months of searching, he and Tish get the bid to rent an apartment in a dump. At first they can hardly believe that there is none, and a little later they scream with happiness. It is not the indignation over the reprehensible that makes “Beale Street” a film with a strong message, but the exuberant joy over what is taken for granted.

Conclusion:

With “Beale Street”, filmmaker Barry Jenkins has succeeded in another film after “Moonlight”, which, in addition to its main actors, scores above all with its staging. But it does not come close to the 2017 Oscar winner (“Best Film”). In a subtle film, he overdraws some characters too much for that.

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