Written and Directed by Ryan Coogler | 137 min | ▲▲▲1/2 | VOD
Ryan Coogler has proved himself a major Hollywood talent from his indie beginning telling a story based on actual events on Fruitvale Station. Then Creed, a clinic on how to revive and spin off a legacy intellectual property. Black Panther was his beloved superhero movie, less so its sequel. Now he’s reunited with his favourite collaborator, Michael B. Jordan, on his own original script — a vampire movie set in the deep south in the early 1930s. It’s confident and ambitious filmmaking, but what stands out above all else is the work of one of his other frequent collaborators, Ludwig Göransson.
This is a movie that lives and breathes through its score. I don’t think it could be defined as a musical, but it’s close. What we have here is a supernatural thriller, a horror, but every scene is lifted by the way the music is threaded through the scenes. Tellingly, Göransson is also credited as a producer. There’s a lot of blues music here, lots of National Steel resonator, and a lot of the blues’ bastard children: soul, rock, and metal.
Through the music, the film is dense and engaging: Jordan plays a double role, twins Smoke and Stack, who’ve been away from their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi, for years. They’ve been to war and to Chicago, made their names as gangsters. Now they’re back to face the devil they know, southern racists. They’ve got a bag full of cash and they want to open a juke joint in a sawmill on the edge of town.
Jordan has charisma to spare, but Sinners doesn’t do much to justify the double role. It’s a gimmick, and the characters he plays aren’t particularly distinct. As my cinepanion pointed out, one is slightly nicer than the other — this isn’t Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers, where you were never in doubt which character was on screen at any time. It isn’t even Mickey 17 and Mickey 18. Two different hats isn’t an effective signifier.
Fortunately, Jordan is surrounded by a stable of quality character performers, some of whom could carry the film on their own. Stack’s ex-girlfriend, Mary, who passes for white, is essayed by the magnetic Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku (His House) has a huge presence as Smoke’s ex-wife, Annie, a voodoo priestess who is recruited to help cook for the opening night of the joint. Delroy Lindo is typically cool and scene-stealing as an alcoholic musician pal, Jayme Lawson as a singer, Pearline, Omar Benson Miller as a bouncer, Cornbread — they’re all vivid and engaging.
Miles Caton plays the gifted blues player Sammie Moore, cousin to Smoke and Stack — we start with him and he’s practically the movie’s lead. He convinces as a talented musician, though his arc as someone resisting his father’s call to give his music to the church and resist temptation feels a little half-baked, especially given how he seduces Pearline. He’s not coming back from that.
One of the things, amongst many, that distinguishes Sinners is how much it forefronts women’s pleasure. This is one sexy movie. Bodies moving is a real draw, and a mid-movie musical sequence — one that dips deep into the movie’s theory that a generational musical talent can reach across time and between life and death — it takes us somewhere new and exciting. It’s Sinners‘ absolute high point.
The comparison to From Dusk Til Dawn — this doesn’t really become a vampire movie until about an hour in, with the arrival of nasty Irish banjo slinger/riverdancer played by Jack O’Connell — feels a little lazy. This is entirely its own beast. That said, I was a little disappointed when the fangs and glowing eyes arrived.
The complexities in the character relationships set up in the first act, the period details, the ways in which Coogler explores cultural and racial history with music the central thread — I loved all of that. Before the supernatural bloodletting, this is a gangster movie masquerading as a prestige or musical drama, and I would’ve been happy to have it continue as such. Vampires are at their best as an allegory, but with the explicitly human drama here, it’s almost too bad this is the genre Coogler and his collaborators chose. What do vampires bring to the themes of the story that weren’t already heavily embedded?
At the end of the day, come to Sinners for the music, and enjoy the performances and confidence in the direction. And make sure you stick around past the credits.
