If Beale Street Could Talk is a slice of Americana cut from the rich turbulence of early 1960s Harlem.
James Baldwin: When I was growing up, I was trying to make a connection between the life I saw and the life I lived. There are days when you wonder what your role is in this country, and what your future is in it. This is one of them. The thing that tormented me the most was the very thing that connected me to all the people who are alive. I’ll tell you a story if I may.
The movie is above all else a love story...it’s about many love stories, in fact. Love of a mother for her children; love of a father for his children; sibling love — of a fierce big sister for her little sister — and it’s about young love that was destined to be tempered by fire so that it could become strong, nurturing, enduring, and life-affirming. If Beale Street Could Talk is about hate. A movie about how racism can and does change the trajectories of ordinary lives; about how cruel people go out of their way to heap unnecessary hardship, anguish and pain on totally innocent folks. If Beale Street Could Talk explains why racism is and has always been about the power to disrupt and control lives. If Beale Street Could Talk is about blue hate for black skin.
A movie based on a book written by "one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, adapted and directed by Barry Jenkins, and recommended by Barack Obama is a can’t-miss project for me.
I am one of the few people on planet earth for whom you cannot spoil a book, a movie, or a game. I don’t care what you say about it or what secrets are divulged, doesn’t bother me one bit...I’m still gonna enjoy the project. But, in deference to those who don’t think like me, I’ll just say, if you can, please go see this movie. It’ll be worth it. I started crying in the middle of the last scene and didn’t stop until it was time for me leave. I cried for all the lives that have been cruelly and unnecessarily disrupted, the sons and daughters who’d never know their dads, the wives who’d lost lovers, the parents who’ve lost children...I cried because of the amazing healing power of love.
Beale Street is Ferguson, it’s Baltimore, it’s Chicago, it’s Cleveland, it’s Harlem. Beale Street is where trees of love are easily uprooted. It takes time and energy to fight for your dignity, your freedom or for your life even; sometimes there’s nothing left to give after all the exhausting battles to survive and to hold onto your sanity. Beale Street is where a dispute with a malicious neighbor or an encounter with a racist cop can mean the difference between life and death or freedom and prison.