Queen & Slim review – road movie goes nowhere fast

Enjoyment of Queen & Slim, the debut feature from renowned music video director Melina Matsoukas, largely hinges on whether or not you can buy into its frankly absurd premise. It begins with a disastrous first date: Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) and Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith), otherwise uninterested in a second, are pulled over by a racist, trigger-happy cop during the car ride home. A tussle follow. The officer winds up dead. Surely Queen, an attorney, would opt to explain the situation to the authorities? Nope. Instead she does the very opposite, suggesting the pair flee the scene and go on the run, throwing her entire life and career away for a man she a) just met and b) doesn’t particularly like.

Based on a desperate-to-be-mythical and at times amateurish screenplay by James Frey and Lena Waithe, Queen & Slim‘s jarring opener sets a precedent for what’s to come: gorgeous visuals and heaps of atmosphere, but a script that has its own agenda, separate from those of its characters. If the point is that our leads are left with no choice but to flee due to the colour of their skin, the film spends the majority of its runtime failing to convince us that this particular pair would arrive at such a conclusion.

Bonnie and Clyde is a clear influence on the story (one character refers to our heroes as a black version of the iconic duo in a particularly unsubtle moment), though I’d argue that Thelma and Louise is the better comparison – especially as our heroes hit the road towards an inevitable final confrontation with pursuing police. For a film that is essentially one long chase, though, there is little urgency here. Nor is there enough material to warrant an eventually tiresome 132 minute runtime. The big problem lies in the contrived nature of events, where scenes seem to exist in isolation, as though constructed in a vacuum and inserted at random.

Later, when Slim asks Queen, “Would you have gone on a second date with me?” and she tells him no, it only further highlights the bizarre nature of their pairing. It would have been easier to accept, perhaps, had the film leaned more into the dreamy atmosphere it occasionally flirts with, allowing questionable plot points to feel less like lapses in logic. Instead Queen & Slim goes back and forth between political seriousness and moments of pure pulp. On-the-nose dialogue doesn’t help matters, either: Lines like “I’m tired of playing it safe… I want to ride or die” drop like duds. Others, such as “Can I be your legacy?” shoot for profundity and provoke only laughter. There is a feeling of seeing a teenager’s first script playing out on screen.

Yet almost everything else about Queen & Slim, from its brilliant production design to its crisp, sunlight-kissed cinematography, really works. Matsoukas shows total control over the material, whilst the lead performances are interesting without being showy. There’s an odd chemistry between Kaluuya and Turner-Smith that you can’t quite put your finger on. At times they seem totally unmatched, and then something will happen and there is an unmistakable sizzle (not the case, however, during one of the weirdest sex scenes in recent memory, awkwardly intercut with footage of a protest rally).

Themes of police brutality and race relations meant Queen & Slim had all the right elements in place to tell a timely story about the contemporary black experience in the US. But this film seems to announce itself as important without actually having anything much to say beyond the basic – or doing any of the work. It’s an undeniable visual accomplishment, impressively acted, and directed with panache by Matsoukas. You just wish she’d devoted her time and energy to a film with a better script.