James Baldwin Centennial

“Barry Jenkins’s adaptation of James Baldwin’s 1974 novel is an opportunity to revisit an author, an era and a set of themes that still reverberate today. The movie tells the love story of Fonny and Tish, young people in early 1970s New York City negotiating an impossible situation. Fonny, an enigmatic, Greenwich Village sculptor, has been falsely accused of rape, sending him through a gauntlet of racist institutions as he and Tish try to maintain their deep love. It’s a vision of black life in the city at a moment of change, as the achievements of the Civil Rights movement have begun to curdle. It’s about the persistence of community and solidarity in the face of prejudice. And it captures Baldwin’s genius: illuminating the bruising, personal toll that American society often exacts.” – Outsider Pictures Brattle Debut 

“It’s hard to imagine how one film could fill you with so much love yet overwhelm you with an equal amount of pain. But that’s exactly what Beale Street does.” – Pop Culture Reviews