The names of the title characters in Queen & Slim are actually Ernest Hines (Daniel Kaluuya) and Angela Johnson (Jodie Turner-Smith), but it’s fitting that this detail gets lost fairly early on in the film. The movie—in which a couple on a first date is pulled over and harassed by a police officer, leading to an altercation in which Ernest shoots the officer in self-defense—reveals how American society squeezes its black citizens into stereotypes as a way to criminalize them. On the run with new Bonnie-and-Clyde nicknames, the pair don the garb of a pimp and a prostitute in order to, as Angela says, “hide in plain sight.” First-time feature director Melina Matsoukas (a veteran of numerous Beyonce music videos) brings a woozy aesthetic to the proceedings, ranging from the cozy glow of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks at the start to a more impressionistic milieu later on, in which dialogue occasionally overlaps non-corresponding imagery. The style is arresting and the leads are strong, but the story runs out of steam (the screenplay is by Lena Waithe of Master of None). Some of the episodic stops on the road trip feel forced, while a parallel sequence intercutting between a sex scene and a protest that ends in another shooting is a jarring choice. It seems to be going for tragic irony, but only ends up cheapening both narratives. (Something similar happens with the climax, but I won’t give that away.)
