If Beale Street Could Talk
Written by Eleanor Lindsay
TW: Article mentions rape
“I hope that no ones ever had to look at anybody they love through glass.”
Fonny is an artist. A sculptor of metal, wood, and stone. We get a small peek into the mind of the artist in one beautiful sequence. As he dances eerily through cigarette smoke around his latest work, he’s illuminated by a single bulb. He is gentle and vulnerable and soft. Perhaps by the religious influence of his mother or his own self-sanctification, Fonny here seems almost holy. There is something sacred to Jenkins about young black men creating art, and young black men pursuing their passion. May that passion be justice, love, or creation.
If Beale Street Could Talk tells the heartbreaking and ethereal love story of Tish and Fonny, two Black young adults living in Harlem in the 70s. After spending childhood together and growing from innocent love to budding passion, the lovers garner high hopes of renting a loft together, even getting married. Suddenly, Fonny is wrongfully arrested by a racist police officer, just in time for Tish to find out she’s pregnant with his child. Its Oscar nominated score and breathtaking cinematography tenderly takes you by the hand and asks you to open up your heart to a world you may have never seen before. A world of heartache and injustice and betrayal, but also a world of hope, triumph, and strength.
Through the winding narration of young Tish, director Barry Jenkins first brings to light the blatant racism ingrained into law enforcers worldwide. When a Puerto Rican woman is raped across town, an officer claims he saw Fonny fleeing the crime scene. This is in fact quite impossible, because Fonny was across town with his friend Daniel, whose prison horror stories serve as first a warning, and then direct parallel to Fonnys’. He describes his two years for auto theft, even though he never learned how to drive. “When you’re in there, they can do whatever they want.” We find out later in the film, the officer who reported seeing Fonny is the very same officer who had attempted to arrest him earlier in the film, his personal vendetta informing his accusation. The DAs office continues to fight the efforts of Tish and her family by sending the victim back to Puerto Rico.
In “Beale Street” Jenkins also invites you into the machinations of Tish and Fonny’s families. From the physical and verbal abuse hurled between Fonny’s parents, to the undying support of Tish’s sister, Ernestine, Jenkins is unafraid to expose all of his characters for exactly who they are. In an effort to raise the funds for Fonny’s lawyer, the lovers fathers are forced to abandon their morals and turn to a life of crime. Jenkins expertly demonstrates crime as a means for survival. Succumbing to a system you can’t undo by yourself as a last resort. A spotlight is also saved for Sharon, Tish’s mother. (Oscar Winner, Regina King) The matriarchs power and passion can’t be questioned after traveling all the way to Puerto Rico to confront the victim and plead for her to release her son. Even through her own failures, she continues to comfort and uplift Tish from the moment she told her family, to the day of her sons birth. There is nothing this family would not do for each other.
This movie does not have a happy ending. It has a realistic one. Many would argue that the polish of Jenkins’ film does not do justice the harrowing reality illustrated in the original novel by James Baldwin of the same name. That the affection and softness wipes away the grit and rawness Baldwin had intended with “the roaches the size of rats and the rats the size of cats,” and the heartbreaking suicide of Fonny’s father after being caught stealing, which was omitted from the film. When we see Tish’s objectification by a white man, her co-workers come to her aid. The first time Fonny is nearly arrested, a nearby store owner vouches for his freedom. I would argue that even with some exclusion and adaptation, Jenkins allowed us something that Baldwin withheld. Hope.
If Beale Street Could Talk is now streaming on Hulu.