Overlooked Classics: Queen and Slim

This is not Bonnie and Clyde, nor Mickey and Mallory. It isn’t Badlands or Heathers, it’s far too rooted in reality. Queen and Slim, a feature debut from Melina Matsoukas, with screenplay by Lena Waithe and James Frey, punches you in the gut before kissing you full on the lips. It’s beautiful,brutal and devastating.

When Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) are driving back from a disastrous first date, they’re pulled over by a racist white policeman. Queen protests when Slim is hauled out of the car, and gets shot in the leg. The policeman then turns on Slim, who grabs the gun off him and kills him in self defence..Aware that there will be dashcam footage of the incident, the pair flee in panic.

This isn’t just a romantic road trip, or a crime film. It’s both, and a powerful political statement. It’s an intelligent meditation on racial profiling, police brutality, and the survival strategies Black people have to navigate every day in the post-Trump America. It also scrutinises the way (mis)information is disseminated across social media and 24 hour rolling news channels. There are visual metaphors referencing heaven and hell, the Underground Railroad and Robert Johnson’s crossroads.

All of this it does subtly, through the prism of two young people slowly trusting each other and falling in love, thrown into circumstances outwith their control.Turner-Smith and Kaluuya are exceptional, giving performances which keep you on your toes until the heart- breaking conclusion.

Dev Hynes, aka Blood Orange, provides the atmospheric soundtrack and Tat Radcliffe’s cinematography is gorgeous. You can almost smell the air as they travel across the cities, and taste the bourbon. This feels like a film which deserves to be seen by everyone. That it hasn’t seems criminal to me.