Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: A-

There’s a lot to love about the production elements of Queen & Slim. It’s directed by a black woman (Malina Matsoukas, her feature film debut), and written by a different black woman (Master of None’s Lena Waithe). In addition to supporting parts featuring Chlöe Sevigny, Flea, and a cameo by Gayle King, it also features trans actor Indya Moore, in a part that makes no mention or reference to trans-ness. This strikes me as significant: so the argument goes, trans parts should go to trans actors (as Moore has in the FX series Pose as Angel), precisely because trans actors never get offered parts otherwise. Here is the first example I have ever seen of that happening, in a wide release, studio film.

Here’s an odd bit, though. Lena Waithe’s script is written from a story developed by her and . . . James Frey, of A Million Little Pieces infamy. Now, don’t get me wrong; that media circus about a “memoir” that was largely fabricated was a decade and a half ago; and, a good writer is a good writer. I have no issue with Frey continuing to make a living off genuine talents. All that notwithstanding, a white guy with the kind of baggage James Frey has, for a movie like this, about a black couple on the run from the law after shooting a police officer in self defense? It’s just an odd choice.

And one has to wonder, which one of these writers contributed the most to Queen & Slim’s unfortunately gradual slip into implausibility, or how as it goes on, the cornier it gets? The opening sequence, before the title sequence, is a fantastic scene between the two leads, Daniel Kaluuya as Slim and Jodie Turner-Smith as Queen, on their first Tinder date. The dialogue is snappy yet well paced, and these two immediately prove they have chemistry together, and they’re just talking over dinner at a diner.

But then, the inciting incident happens very quickly: as Slim is driving Queen home, they get pulled over by a jumpy police officer, a white guy later revealed to have a separate incident in his past that I’m not convinced was necessary for making this story work. Queen has already revealed herself to be an exceedingly knowledgeable attorney, and when the cop pulls his gun on Slim without provocation, she gets out of the car and effectively complicates an unwinnable scenario. The cop is dead and these two are on the run before we even see the title Queen & Slim on screen.

What follows is effectively a road movie, “black Bonnie & Clyde” meets “black Thelma & Louise.” (Only the former phrase is ever actually uttered in this film’s dialogue, by Queen’s Uncle Earl, played by Bokeem Woodbine.) We meet many characters for comparatively brief sequences, as they pass through Queen and Slim’s travels. As their fugitive status becomes a bigger and bigger media sensation, they become icons of the black community, getting help from random strangers to such a degree, ultimately, that it begins to stretch believability. I’m not convinced a black cop would let them go just because he happens to be black, but this movie seems to suggest just that (having said cop get reflexively defensive about his white partner’s fairly benign use of the word “boy,” just for good measure).

The first half or so of Queen & Slim is very well edited and expertly paced, a movie about two young people barely staying one step ahead of a situation that has them out of their depth. It’s exciting in ways that are unnerving as well as subtle. In its second half, it never goes off the rails, but it feels like it’s moving in a slow arc in that direction. As Queen and Slim become icons, there is a brief but overt suggestion that they have inspired young black kids to think it’s okay to shoot cops, and this idea is treated neither with as much time as it should get, nor with any nuance.

Even as the dialogue begins to veer into the realm of the cheesy, as Queen and Slim catch romantic feelings for each other in the midst of their intermittent fear and chaos, Kaluuya and Turner-Smith elevate the material with their charismatic performances. Queen & Smith feels like something with aspirations to have an indelible mark on the zeitgeist, indeed something on par with Thelma & Louise—right down to its unfortunately predictable ending—but that might just be its biggest problem. The only movies that have that kind of seismic impact are those that aren’t trying to, the ones whose makers never even considered that possibility.

Which is to say, as compelling as Queen & Slim is from beginning to end, the more you think about it, getting into the details, the more subtly problematic it becomes. This movie has a great many things that are worthy of celebration, but sometimes we have to celebrate something not because it’s as great as it could be, but because it’s the best we’ve got. And to be sure, this movie’s ambitions alone are commendable. Let’s hope it paves the way for more artists to fully realize their potential.

*Can you see it? The inevitable murals and posters and T-shirts?*

Overall: B