Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 2018

The Contenders:

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
BlacKkKlansman (winner)
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
If Beale Street Could Talk
A Star is Born

Inside and Out

Film: If Beale Street Could Talk
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

Typically, I write a review of a movie on the same day that I watch it. While that’s not 100%, it’s common enough that it’s more or less my standard process with this website, even if I end up storing the review to post at a later date. As it happens, I have dozens of unposted reviews that will show up here someday. In the case of If Beale Street Could Talk, I’m writing this review almost 24 hours after watching the film. This has nothing to do with my schedule, and everything to do with the fact that, once I was done, I realized that I had nothing to say about it.

This sounds like I didn’t like the movie, and that wouldn’t be an accurate assessment. I literally had nothing to say about it, either positive or negative. If Beale Street Could Talk more or less washed over me as a story I felt like I had seen before any number of times. And so I’m desperately conflicted about it. It’s well made. I love the pace at which the story is told, and the dream-like quality that comes up throughout the film makes the experience all that much more effective. But this is a very simple story of race and injustice, and it’s a story that we’ve all seen before a number of times.