ography to prove Fonny’s inno-
cence - he was arrested in an area
of New York he couldn’t possibly
have gotten to at that time if he
had been involved in the assault
- but nobody wants to listen to
reason from two young black kids
in ‘70s New York. With Fonny be-
hind bars awaiting trial, Tish and
her mother Sharon (Regina King)
embark on a crusade to have his
name cleared.
The premise may make If Beale
Street Could Talk sound like a le-
gal drama, but it’s actually much
more of a romance. In fact, it’s one
of the most romantic movies to
come out of American cinema in
quite some time. Jenkins devotes
the bulk of his film to Fonny and
Tish in the weeks leading up to
the former’s arrest, his camera sim-
ply hanging out with them as they
bask in each other’s presence, and
he really sells the sense that these
two people belong together.
The more we see of the happi-
NJ STAGE - ISSUE 54
ness Fonny and Tish bring one
another, the more ominous the
film becomes, reflected in Nicho-
las Brittell’s stunning Jazz influ-
enced score, which like Bernard
Herrmann’s work on Taxi Driver,
takes the soothing warmth of Jazz
and occasionally corrupts it with a
brooding undercurrent. The sug-
gestion is that moments of beauty
should be savoured, for darkness
is never far away.
There are few things more affect-
ing in movies than moments of
human kindness. In a time when
doing so took even more bravery
than today, three white people
come to the aid of Fonny and Tish
in their own ways - a young law-
yer (Finn Wittrock) who takes a
personal interest in Fonny’s case,
a young landlord who rents out a
loft to the couple when nobody
else would, and an elderly Eastern
European woman who intervenes
when a cop (Ed Skrein) attempts
to arrest Fonny for defending his
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