Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk gets a… | Little White Lies

Trailers

Bar­ry Jenk­ins’ If Beale Street Could Talk gets a gor­geous new trailer

20 Sep 2018

Words by Adam Woodward

Two young Black adults, a man and a woman, embrace intimately in a dimly lit setting.
Two young Black adults, a man and a woman, embrace intimately in a dimly lit setting.
The director’s fol­low-up to his Oscar-win­ning Moon­light is based on James Baldwin’s clas­sic novel.

We’re big fans of Bar­ry Jenk­ins’ hot­ly-antic­i­pat­ed third fea­ture, based on James Baldwin’s 1974 book of the same name. Arriv­ing two years after the Amer­i­can direc­tor scooped his first Oscar for the heartrend­ing com­ing-of-ager Moon­light, If Beale Street Could Talk fol­lows a black cou­ple liv­ing in Harlem, New York, in the ear­ly 70s.

At first glance, the sto­ry of Tish (Kiki Layne) and Fon­ny (Stephan James) is an inti­mate por­trait of a bur­geon­ing romance – but this being a faith­ful Bald­win adap­ta­tion, Jenk­ins’ film is so much more than that. It’s about parental respon­si­bil­i­ty and devo­tion, hope, faith and com­mu­ni­ty, and love per­sist­ing in the face of entrenched racial oppression.

The two cen­tral char­ac­ters, bril­liant­ly brought to life by Layne and James, sym­bol­ise the strug­gle of African-Amer­i­can peo­ple then and now, with Jenk­ins empha­sis­ing the sys­tem­at­ic injus­tice which Bald­win so astute­ly cri­tiqued through­out his career.

As such, Beale Street is anoth­er time­ly and urgent new work from one of the most pow­er­ful emerg­ing voic­es in con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­can cin­e­ma. Expect to hear a lot more from us on Beale Street in the not too dis­tant future. Before then, check out the brand new trail­er below ahead of the film’s the­atri­cal release on 19 Jan­u­ary 2019.

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