‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ review — An intimate and political love story

If Beale Street Could Talk is gorgeous, powerful, stunningly crafted, and another masterpiece from Barry Jenkins.

If Beale Street Could Talk is a love story at its core the same way that Moonlight, director Barry Jenkins’ last film, is. It makes sense considering Jenkins excels at everything you need to make a good romance. He nails communicating intimacy on screen, often using delicious close-ups of faces and people touching.

And like Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk is cast against a melancholic theme that tests the relationship. In Moonlight, the main character fights against his own identity and the circumstances of his coming-of-age as a queer black man. In If Beale Street Could Talk, the challenges are more tangible. 

The main couple, sweet perfume counter clerk Tish (Kiki Layne) and swoon-worthy woodworker Fonny (Stephan James), have known each other since childhood. Through Tish’s gentle voiceover we learn about their love story and how it developed from friendship to something more. However, Fonny is in trouble. 

He is accused by a white cop (an extremely creepy Ed Skrein) of raping a Puerto Rican woman named Victoria Rogers (Emily Rios). With only Tish and an old friend Daniel (Brian Tyree Henry in a masterful one scene performance) with a criminal record as his alibi, Tish must work to free him.

It wasn’t always easy for the couple as the movie shows — it’s structured as a series of vignettes from their relationship sprinkled between moments from the present, which is 1970s Harlem.

The first 30 minutes are dedicated to Tish trying to tell her family that she and Fonny are expecting a child. Her mother Sharon (Regina King) is warm and supportive. And after an initial shock, so are her father Joseph (Coleman Domingo) and sister Ernestine (Teyonah Parris). But, she is also tasked with telling Fonny’s deeply religious mother (Aunjanue Ellis).

That first scene is a masterful practice in acting and staging supported by Jenkins’ generous screenplay — based off of James Baldwin’s novel of the same name. It all feels like a stage play with actors navigating the space in relation to each other and changing positions as the power in the scene ebbs and flows. 

If Jenkins is best at anything it’s his ability to communicate emotion and power without words. In another scene, Fonny and Tish prepare to have sex for the first time. The music in the background drops out to make way for the sound of rain as we watch their bodies intertwine. It’s a powerful and emotional scene dripping with intimacy.

Moonlight grappled with the themes of care — for oneself and others — and love. Often that care and love were represented by a safe space. If Beale Street Could Talk deals with that same idea. What is a safe space for a black person? Well, the movie answers that with its opening quote:

“Every black person born in America was born on Beale Street, born in the black neighborhood of some American city, whether in Jackson, Mississippi or in Harlem, New York. Beale Street is our legacy.”

James Baldwin

What is so heartbreaking about If Beale Street Could Talk is that it presupposes that those safe spaces are almost impossible to find in America.

There are pockets where it exists — a grocery store where an elderly woman defends Tish and Fonny from a racist cop or an old warehouse where the Jewish landlord (Dave Franco) is willing to rent to the couple — but largely those places are vanishing. Fonny and Tish’s story acts as the conduit to explore that theme and their love story is what makes that exploration so effective.

The film is pieced together like a memory — it’s edited by Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders, the Oscar-nominated editors of Moonlight — and Nicholas Britell’s score — also a collaborator on Moonlight — is a melancholic piece with notes of hope and yearning — the best score of the year. All those elements come together to create a masterwork of mood.

Like his last film, Jenkins and casting director Cindy Tolan pieced together a flawless group of actors. Kiki Layne and Stephen James are both marvelous discoveries who possess so much chemistry with each other that it’s nearly impossible to resist falling for them as a couple.

However, it’s the supporting cast that standout. Particularly, Coleman Domingo is a strong but sentimental steady hand, and Regina King — worthy of an Oscar — has a show-stopping segment set in Puerto Rico that cements her performance as one of the best of the year.

If Beale Street Could Talk has so many moving parts that make it work. However, the core of its success is the main couple’s story. Not just the story to get Fonny freed but their love story — a beautiful black love story that we should be seeing more of. Gorgeous, powerful, and stunningly crafted, If Beale Street Could Talk is another masterpiece from Barry Jenkins.

If Beale Street Could Talk will be in theaters on December 14th.