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If Beale Street Could Talk

2018

Barry Jenkins

KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Regina King, Diego Luna ...

6.3

4,407

Romance. Drama Based on the novel by James Baldwin, “If Beale Street Could Talk” follows Tish, a newly engaged Harlem woman who races against the clock to prove her lover’s innocence while carrying their unborn child. The movie is a celebration of love told through the story of a young couple, their families, and their lives.

	Author	Review
United States	David Rooney The Hollywood Reporter	"The drama is fully inhabited and alive (...) The exquisite production and costume design, together with the graceful, always meticulously calibrated movement of camera makes for a uniquely seductive visual experience."	POS
United States	Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"Jenkins wants to create a tone poem out of heartbreak (...) It’s the sort of cinema that feels steeped in the past, completely of the moment and timeless all at once. (…) Rating: ★★★★½ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Peter Debruge Variety	"Jenkins brings a colorful, idealistic eye to the novel (...) A work of social realism elevated to poetic heights by the sheer beauty of its voice and the humanism of its spirit"	POS
United States	Odie Henderson rogerebert.com	"Jenkins' decision to let the original storyteller live and breathe throughout 'If Beale Street Can Talk' is a wise one (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Manohla Dargis The New York Times	"A sensitive colorist, Jenkins’s work here is subtler than in 'Moonlight,' (...) A familiar story of raw, brutal American racial injustice, and it is devastating."	POS
United States	Jason Bailey The Playlist	"In a time when the frustrations of mainstream movies have caused so many a modern filmgoer to long for the cinema of the ‘70s, here is a director whose work has the emotional immediacy of the best of that period."	POS
United States	Eric Kohn IndieWire	"[It] maintains with his own profound, expressionistic aesthetic, resulting in a fascinating hybrid experience — a seminal voice of the past merging with one of the present in a mesmerizing burst of creative passion."	POS
United States	Matt Donnelly The Wrap	"Their glances, light touches, their smiles, even their squabbles and mundane chores are breathtaking (...) It’s there in this work, [Jenkins] dream. 'Beale Street' is not inclusive, it is transcendent."	POS
United States	Inkoo Kang Slate	"In the movies, love is cheap. It's everywhere and nowhere, too often reduced to a formula or a reward. Beale Street knows better."	POS
United States	David Crow Den of Geek	"Jenkins crafts an ultimately epic portrait of love, loss, racism, and a system shrouded in an ambiguity deeper than black or white (...) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Benjamin Lee The Guardian	"It’s still far from conventional (...) It’s satisfying to feel so much while watching it. Sensorily and emotionally, it’s an almost overwhelming experience (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Tim Grierson Screendaily	"If 'Beale Street' isn’t quite as seamless as 'Moonlight', this adaptation of the James Baldwin novel still proves to be a stirring, absorbing experience that articulates something ineffable about everyday life."	POS

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