"Queen & Slim" Doesn't Need to Win an Oscar to Go Down in History (2024)

Queen & Slim hits theaters November 27, but I've already screened it twice now. Any time someone has asked me for my review of the film, I've found myself at a loss; not only did I find this film too breathtaking for words, but it's also a difficult one to summarize without giving away key details of the plot.

But since I can't stop talking about this movie, I've had to do my best to sum it all up. is a slow burning love story, set to the kind of majestic, melanin-rich visuals we've became acquainted with thanks to Beyoncé's "Formation." But it's also a rumination on police brutality in America, a tale that will at once bring you to tears and also make you feel at home—with an ending that will haunt you for days, maybe even weeks.

The romantic thriller was written by Master of None and The Chi's Lena Waithe and directed by music video veteran Melina Matsoukas. The plot follows a Black couple who, after their first (awkward) date, are pulled over when Slim forgets to signal a turn. But what should have been a simple encounter ends in bloodshed self-defense against a racist cop. As the story quickly becomes national news, the next two hours see Queen and Slim on the run from the law. The resulting cross-country escape will likely be compared to Bonnie and Clyde—but in this case, the titular characters are far from criminals.

With this work, Waithe and Matsoukas make a dynamic pair—and this is their masterpiece. But Waithe is candid about Queen & Slim's origin story. At a party a few years ago, it was actually A Million Little Pieces author James Frey who shared his idea with Waithe about a movie following a Black couple's escape after an encounter with a police officer. But both writers knew Frey couldn't be the one to tell this story.

"For me, it was the perfect example that sometimes, white people need to get out of the way and allow us to do our thing," Waithe says. "James got that. He was like look, I shouldn’t write this story—but I think somebody should. And it was just perfect for me. It captured everything I needed to tell in a very quiet and intimate way that was at the same time very big and robust."

As she began to write, Waithe only had one person in mind to direct. Over the past 15 years, Matsoukas has made her mark as one of the most important visual storytellers of this generation, thanks to a unique eye that manages to bring stories to life while unapologetically screaming "for the culture." Her resume includes several episodes of Insecure, plus music videos for artists like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Beyoncé, with whom she's collaborated on 12 videos.

For some time, Matsoukas had been searching for the exact right project to tackle for her first-ever feature-length film—and she chose this genre-bending story because of the way it could "push the culture forward." But to achieve that, both she and Waithe were aware that the love would have to be in the details.

"We wanted to build upon the legacy our heroes had built—and the fight in which they had struggled and won," Matsoukas says. "There's a Black cop named Langston; Langston Hughes is obviously a very prolific writer. Queen’s real name is Angela, for activist Angela Davis. They stop at a juke joint called The Underground; I’ve always seen this story as a kind of a reverse slave escape narrative, with this couple on the run through a modern day Underground Railroad. We really tried to blend the legacy of Black people into each and every frame."

The pairing of Waithe's witty yet poignant protest art with Matsoukas's carefully curated imagery results in a stunning film with performances that lift the story off the screen. Newcomer Jodie Turner-Smith is Queen, a character who is—purposefully—brusque and analytical, the yin to the yang of Daniel Kaluuya's laid-back, slightly naïve Slim. But there's a deeper meaning behind the differences in their personalities.

"Queen and Slim show two different sides of Blackness—he’s religious, she’s not. She’s not close to her family, he is. He eats loudly and aggressively, she doesn’t. She believes in bending the world, he thinks you can be just as iconic by existing in it," Waithe explains. "I wanted to show both sides of the same Black coin, because not all Black experiences are the same experience."

Both Turner-Smith and Kaluuya are incredibly convincing, but Kaluuya says that for this particular role, there was no research needed.

"I’ve lived it. Since I was 13 years old, probably a bit younger, I've known intimately what it's like to be targeted because of the color of your skin," Kaluuya says. "But I don’t think that had happened yet to Slim to that degree, so there’s an innocence he had, which just made the confusion and fear he experienced after everything all the more impactful."

But Kaluuya and Waithe are each adamant that they don't want to force a "moral of the story" upon Queen & Slim's audiences. "This film brings up a lot of really timely questions," Kaluuya says. "And we’re not trying to give you any answers...we're hoping you'll have the conversation yourselves."

Waithe adds: "I don’t want to tell people what to take away from it. I’ve done the work. Now y’all got to do it."

After both of my viewings, I myself certainly did the work, and there were several messages I took away that I have to believe were intentional. First, there is the mirror Queen & Slim holds up to the complicated layers of Black love. From the very first scene, we see the push-pull between a strong-willed Black woman and an entitled Black man. But by the end, Black audiences will be reminded that even at our worst, no one will understand the skin we're in or have our backs like our own.

I think Indya Moore's character—a sex worker for Queen's uncle, Earl—puts it best when she explains why she puts up with Earl's mistreatment. For her, it's about uplifting one of her own, no matter the cost. "He needs us to worship him," she says simply, before reflecting on the difference between how the real world treats him versus his girlfriends. "Out there, he ain't shit. But in here? He a king."

And then there is the way this movie captures immortality. The film is in many ways an homage to victims of police brutality like Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice—but it also forces us to face just how quickly we let tragedies like theirs dissolve into hashtags that will reappear once a year on Twitter for 24 hours.

Queen & Slim asks us to honor those who have fallen, but also to consider our own legacies. During one of many pass-the-time conversations on their drive across America, Slim puts his own hopes simply: "I ain’t going to bend the world. As long as my lady remembers me fondly, that’s all I need." It's a musing on love, yes, but also the meaning of life. What is all of this all for, if not to be loved—and to be remembered with love?

But perhaps what struck me most about Queen & Slim is the way it captures the juxtaposition of the Black experience in America. It brought to mind a conversation Ta-Nehisi Coates and Oprah recently had at The Apollo Theater. That night, Coates discussed the passage in his novel The Water Dancer where his slave protagonist, Hiram, admits there are certain parts of slavery he appreciates.

"There is a part of being Black in America that we would all part with and give up...and that is the fact of being put into a Black race and having to deal with all the things that come with that," Coates told Oprah. "But the cultural part—we’re not giving the greens up. Don’t want to give that back. We don’t want to give Marvin Gaye back. We’re not doing that. And so Hiram was enslaved, but even he can recognize ‘There are things that I love about this.’"

That sentiment is also at the heart of Waithe and Matouskas's film. Even while telling the story of two Black people forced to go on the run for defending themselves from a clearly racist cop—the kind of incident that seems to only happen to Black people in America—Queen & Slim is still a celebration of Blackness. There's the slow zoom in on Slim as he sits in the backyard to get his hair cut by hands adorned by colorful acrylic nails; the richness with which Queen and Slim's brown skin is captured during a love scene; the road trip debate over Fat Luther Vandross versus Skinny Luther Vandross.

Even as this young Black couple is being persecuted for protecting their lives against a system that's rigged against them, it's apparent that neither Queen nor Slim would trade their Blackness for anything. And while Waithe and Kaluuya won't force a message on this film, I'm personally willing to bet every Black person who goes to see Queen & Slim can relate to that in some way.

Of course, it's quite possible that many audiences will miss all of these points entirely—especially those that don't include people of color. And although Oscars buzz and predictions have have already begun, it's also possible (likely, even) that the various awards academies might not give this film the recognition it deserves.

I have a feeling, however, that for the creators, awards season buzz won't matter much—because Queen & Slim is a masterpiece created for us, by us. And one day years from now, when our lineage looks back at film history, that fact will matter much more than any review or accolade.

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