“As Sharon Rivers, Regina King lights If Beale Street Could Talk” with a maternal glow that serves as a port in the storm surrounding the lovers Fonny and Tish. Her beacon burns brightly, illuminating a path for not only her daughter but her future son-in-law as well. She is the quintessential mother, comforting and warm yet in command of a fierceness that protects her progeny like the strongest armor. Sharon’s chainmail has been forged in the fires of an unjust, unequal America; when her daughter faces similar injustices, Sharon shrewdly prepares for battle. While watching director Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of James Baldwin’s 1974 novel, the viewer senses that if one were ever in trouble, one would want Sharon Rivers to fight for them.
“Two scenes highlight this notion, and King treats them in completely different yet no less effective fashion. The first scene is the re-enactment of the novel’s most memorable scene, the announcement of Tish’s pregnancy to Fonny’s parents. Sharon wears a nice outfit but accentuates it with her bedroom slippers—after all, this is her house. Though the two families are friendly (the men more than the women), there’s an uneasy tension based on one side thinking itself better than the other. When Fonny’s mother plays the high moral card by casting Tish in the shadow of sin, Sharon forcefully defends not only her daughter, but Fonny and the baby as well. ‘This is your grandbaby,’ she says. ‘It don’t make a difference how it got here.’ Though the sequence is an ensemble piece, King is the metronome controlling the tempo—it rises and falls on her beats.
“King crafts this hybrid of mother and warrior even more noticeably in her second big scene. Sharon flies to Puerto Rico to convince the woman who mistakenly accused Fonny of rape to recant her story. Just before meeting her, Sharon contemplates her own appearance by silently questioning whether she should wear her wig. Observing King’s inner monologue we realize that, just as in the showdown scene with Fonny’s parents, Sharon’s attire is one of the weapons she chooses for battle. This is when all the character-building work King has been meticulously doing reveals itself, showing the richness and the depth of her performance. She makes the tragedy of Tish and Fonny a little more hopeful, for we know they’ll always have Sharon’s pillar of strength to lean on.” ~ Odie Henderson
No comments:
Post a Comment