If Beale Street Could Talk
2018
**
Director: Barry Jenkins
Cast: KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Colman Domingo, Teyonah Parris, Michael Beach, Dave Franco, Diego Luna, Pedro Pascal, Ed Skrein, Brian Tyree Henry, Regina King
Tish discovers that she's pregnant just as her boyfriend Fonny is wrongly sent to prison for rape. Tish and her family are determined to prove his innocence. For his follow-up to Moonlight, Barry Jenkins adapts James Baldwin's 1974 novel to tell a moving and visually impressive story about love, injustice, and systemic racism. Unfortunately this story only warrants a 30 minute short, not a full 2-hour feature. The pacing is dead slow, and many of the individual scenes drag on for an eternity. Regina King won an Academy Award for her supporting performance.
