Sinners Review
Sinners is Ryan Coogler’s first fully original screenplay and one of my favourite films of the last few years, starring Michael B Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld and Jack O’Connell with Miles Canton in his debut role.
Coogler does an incredible job of filling Sinners with multiple themes which are relevant to the time period in which the film is set as well as today with the allegory of the film being racism and assimilation. This allegory is covered by Jack O’Connell’s character Remmick, an Irish vampire who tries to get convert everyone in the juke joint into vampires to gather the sense of having a family and being one community. With the film covering mostly Black-American and Irish culture it leads to creating a sympathetic villain as you can understand why he wants a community, with 1930’s American being a very hard time for black people with the Ku Klux Klan and racial segregation in America and years prior, Irish immigrants experiencing discrimination due their language and religion. Remmick wanted everyone to come together as vampires so they all become one community and stop all discrimination, being an allegory for colonialism and assimilation.
As for the acting, Michael B Jordan puts in an incredible performance as Smoke and Stack, twin brothers who used to work for Al Capone. What I loved about his performance is that it seems very common for a dual role to fall into the trope of having one being sane while the other can be unhinged. For example, Robert Pattinson in Mickey 17, Tom Hardy in Legend and Christian Bale in The Prestige. With Michael B Jordan’s performance, the brothers do differ because they are their own people but not in the way in which one is sane, one is crazy. Coogler makes each brother distinct but yet in sync, Smoke is the more business-led and stern of the two with Stack having a bit more of an attitude and more of a scoundrel, this leads to it being his best performance to date as he adds so much nuance to these roles.
Hailee Steinfeld as Mary is a great addition to the cast. Mary is the white-passing love interest for Stack who is dealing with the passing of her mother. Hailee Steinfeld’s performance is different to anything I had seen her in before. I first saw her in roles with Edge of Seventeen, Bumblebee and Pitch Perfect 2, where she plays a more ‘coming-of-age’ type role. Sinners is a more mature role for her and is even the most vulgar in a role I have seen her. Mary in this film ends up using her sexuality to seduce Stack and turn him. Her role in Sinners has shown me that she is a very capable actress who is potentially moving on to the next stage of her career.
The music in this film is incredible, Ludwig Görranson has once again provided a fulfilling score for his fifth collaboration with Ryan Coogler. The blues inspired score elevates one scene in particular, as it geniusly blends together blues, R&B, rock and african drums as it shows music moving through culture and time in montage seamlessly showing music originating from black culture and how it has evolved. This scene was probably one of my favourites in the film alongside the scene with Remmick singing ‘Rocky Road to Dublin’ with his newly formed vampire community, whilst performing an Irish jig, tying back to Remmick’s Irish roots which is elevated by Jack O’Connell’s heritage. The story of the song is mirrored by Remmick’s goals. It is the story of a man who travels long and far across the country to make a name for himself with no one helping him unless he was closer home with similar people, shown by the lyrics “The boys of Liverpool/…/ Called myself a fool”, he is making a name for himself within his newfound vampire community as they are now like-minded and helping him to expand it.
The cinematography was shot by Autumn Durald Arkapaw on 65mm film and is engaging. Arkapaw is able to make even the most run down the areas look visually stunning using the greenery. The film swaps between being shot on IMAX 15-perf and Ultra Panavision 70 cameras and this changes between 1.43:1 and 2.76:1 aspect ratio. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to watch the film in IMAX, but had I had the chance I would have probably said it was the best way to watch.
My Letterboxd Score: 5/5
