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If Beale Street Could Talk Movie Review

If Beale Street Could Talk is a 2018 romantic drama film directed by Barry Jenkins and starring Regina King among others. It’s a very disappointing, boring movie.

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“You ready for this?

I’ve never been more ready for anything in my whole life“

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It follows a young black woman who, with her family’s support, seeks to clear the name of her wrongly charged lover and prove his innocence before the birth of their child. It’s a great premise with a lot of potential which is unfortunately only fully utilized in that terrific first act as that entire argument between the two families was very dramatic, grounded in reality and ultimately quite powerful.

The rest of the film is so much weaker because of its excruciatingly slow pace which made the movie come into a halt. The pacing in this movie is horrible, very uneven and especially leisurely in the second half which bored me tremendously.

It’s also a very strong case of bad book adaptations. Yes, this movie was so obviously once a book that I could see it from miles away and I shouldn’t have had they adapted it well. It had way too many details and characters, plot points are rushed and simply a lot of dialogue and narration really reminded me of a book and never at all did I feel like I was watching a movie.

If Beale Street Could Talk definitely has some solid performances from its lesser known, but still impactful cast. Regina King is certainly very memorable herself, but even though worthy of an Oscar nomination, I wouldn’t have rewarded her with a win, but that category was quite weak so I don’t mind it too much.

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But the characters are ultimately not as well utilized, especially the main character who was not particularly memorable not well developed at all. The family dynamics worked in the movie, but individually the characters needed more work. I found the score good, but not all that great as many have pinpointed. The dialogue is strong of course, but the cinematography and Barry Jenkins’ disappointing direction really did not help the movie adapt its source material properly at all.

Watching If Beale Street Could Talk felt like a reading experience to me and never at all did I feel as if I were watching a feature film. It’s very badly adapted and horribly paced that it becomes excruciatingly slow to follow. Yes, the performances are very good, the film’s quite tender in its tone and I loved that first act as it was dramatic and quite powerful, but everything that came afterwards was dull, lifeless and lacking any sort of momentum.

My Rating – 3