FILM REVIEW
SINNERS
Rated R
137 Minutes
Released April 18th
This is one big Blues/Jazz/Vampire/Disco Dance Party. Wow! Sinners will pick you up and drop you into the symphonic painting of a tumultuous time and place in our history. It will take you on a zipline through hell. It will affect you as much from the intense staccato of the camera work and editing, and the energy of the cast, as from the story. It’s musical theatre without being a musical, as the music and dance is wrapped in the dialogue. It’s a mob movie, with warring factions poured into a fiery hot bowl of disparate cultures.
Sinners is not just a movie, it’s a gigantic mural of Black culture in the Jim Crow South – the Mississippi Delta, in the early 1930s. Some 65 years after the end of the Civil War, the Black residents there are free in name only. Most are sharecroppers, picking cotton just like those who were brought to the place before them as slaves. It’s an allegory of the social upheaval and imbalance of rights in our country as told through a vampire fantasy.
In his youth, director Ryan Coogler worked with kids in Juvenile Hall and was a security guard, and he attended college on a football scholarship. Actor Forest Whitaker took Coogler under his wing and helped him produce his first feature film, Fruitvale Station, about a tragic incident in Coogler’s hometown of Oakland, California. That first film had a simple structure but a theme that resonates throughout Coogler’s work: the disenfranchisement of the Black community in our country. Coogler went on to write and direct the Creed and Black Panther anthologies.
As do most gifted film directors, Coogler has a team of filmmakers who have worked on projects with him over the years. Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw shot Black Panther: Wakanda Forever for him. Her camera work lends an intimate and constantly fluctuating movement to Sinners. Her shots can give a wide-open look at the landscape or setting, and when emphasis is needed, the camera will follow a character into a room or a situation, establishing anticipation or dread. She will catch a character from different angles for emphasis. Arkapaw has been working as a cinematographer since 2007 and is now the first woman to shoot a feature on 65mm and IMAX cameras.
Editor Michael P. Shawver worked with Coogler on Fruitvale Station and the Creed and Black Panther movies. Production designer Hanna Beachler works frequently with him. The music, by Swedish composer Ludwig Goransson, is a character itself in this movie, a soundtrack so breathtaking it could be played on its own as a concert. The Blues has a huge role, as it is the backbone of this story and time. Goransson, who is Swedish, met Coogler when he enrolled at USC and has composed for most of Coogler’s films.
Every member of the cast in Sinners has the presence of a star. Miles Caton, who plays “Sammie” in his first feature film, is the focal point of the story. Sammie communicates through music. Caton has been performing as a musician, R&B and gospel, most of his 20 years. He sent in his tape along with many others for the role, and Coogler noted, “You could just tell the kid was special.” Caton says of Coogler’s directing style that he’s “really like a football coach…always working with us…whatever we would be doing, he would be in it with us.”
Twins “Smoke” and “Stack” are played by Coogler stalwart Michael B. Jordan, who gives each a unique personality. Having survived as soldiers during World War I, these two are the instigators of the tale and of the transformation that comes about. Jordan started his career in the acclaimed television series The Wire, went on to Friday Night Lights, and then played the lead roles in Coogler’s Fruitvale Station and the Creed and Black Panther movies.
In Sinners, Wunmi Mosaku gives a powerful performance with a hint of humor as “Annie.” Hailee Steinfeld, whose great-grandmother was Black, is sultry, tragic, and terrifying as “Mary,” who “passes for white.” Jayme Lawson gives a knockout performance as “Pearline,” including a beautifully sung Blues ballad. Jack O’Connell as “Remmick” once worked as a farmhand and was in and out of court on alcohol and violence charges as a youth, bringing some real-life angst to his role.
There is so much going on in this movie, so many layers – of history, psychology, folklore, you should see it when you’re fresh and alert. As always, through the ages, music is the best storyteller, and Coogler lets music tell the tale. Don’t go just to be entertained. This is a history lesson, a jazz and blues and dance concert, with stellar acting performances. Smoke and Stack’s juke joint represents the heart of Black culture in the 1930s South.
This is a monumental movie for several reasons. The film has transcended race in its appeal. It presents an allegory that covers a crucial period of history in our country. It melds together a combination of stylistic film genres, and it has a groundbreaking production format. In a pioneering deal with Warner Bros., Coogler retains the rights to the film in 25 years, instead of the studio owning it. That shows how much the producers believed in him. Sinners has been called “a new American classic” by Richard Newby of the Hollywood Reporter, I would encourage you to read his thoughtful review of the film.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com
