左拉

Authored from a Twitter thread that goes viral, Janicza Bravo’s second feature film ZOLA makes a heavy weather of its grassroots obscenity. Zola (Paige) is an African-American waitress and part-time stripper living in Detroit who finds a fast friend in Stefani (Keough), also a stripper. Invited by Stefani, along with her boyfriend Derrek (Braun) and roommate X (Domingo), for a weekend trip to Tampa, Florida, ostensibly to earn some cash in a strip club, Zola is plunged into an unsavory 3-day escapade that ends with blood-spurting and a suicide attempt.

Purportedly based on the real story, ZOLA smugly shoves its stranger-than-fiction novelty down our throats, you don’t need a keen sense to suss some whoring carryings-on are afoot, and the two girls’ solidarity is paper thin, who can trust a friend you are merely acquaint with for a day? Zola’s own moral compass is also shonky.

That said, squatting in the moral high ground, Zola (the movie is her story to tell, Stefani’s perspective is apportioned to a short stint, but her say-so is so flimsy that whatever comes from her mouth barely holds water) becomes the reluctant minder of Stefani’s escort business, but not for once, she debases herself in the sack, on top of that, she is so canny that it makes Stefani and X, yes, he is her pimp, look like greenhorns, the two cannot even fathom a fair market price for their service. That sounds suspiciously self-boasting in Zola’s part.

I’m not saying that what Zola tells is not the truth, only by my lights, I think everyone should take an autobiographical source material with a pinch of salt, when the author remains squeaky clean amid the grubby mess, it often impairs the story’s credence. Also, the script fails to energize Zola’s own actions, most of the time, she just goes through the motions with a miffed passivity, silently passes judgment to what happens, she has ample chances to skip town but she poutingly stays, both fascinated and disgusted by the rabbit hole she descends into. Plainly put, you just cannot warm up to Zola, Paige gives a fine performance, but Zola is a cipher, she hogs the spotlight but has no flex to flourish .

Keough is at risk of being typecast as a white-trash girl of fickle and untrustworthy dispositions, no sparkles fly between her Stefani and Paige’s Zola, girl power has nothing to do with their guarded interactions. Conversely, the male actors comport themselves much better, Jason Mitchell has his moment as a slimy trickster; Braun’s gangly desperation of a schlemiel has a modicum of innocence in the center that it even feels touching, and Domingo is scary, despicable but also eloquent in incarnating X’s mutable facets, he is the real deal among the fold, yet, we are saddled most of time with two lesser creatures, in this prismatic, grainy, symmetry-abiding, faux-candid exploit that never fully rises to the occasion to be a legit sensation, and inter alia, Mica Levi's distinguishable score deserves a better story to shore up.

referential entries: Andrea Arnold’s AMERICAN HONEY (2016, 7.9/10); Safdie Brothers’ GOOD TIME (2017, 7.1/10); Lorene Scafaria’s HUSTLERS (2019, 6.6/10).

Title: Zola

Year: 2020

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama

Country: USA

Language: English

Director: Janicza Bravo

Screenwriters: Janicza Bravo, Jeremy O. Harris

based on the tweets by A’Ziah King, based on the article by David Kushner

Music: Mica Levi

Cinematography: Ari Wegner

Editing: Joi McMillion

Cast:

Taylour Paige

Riley Keough

Colman Domingo

Nicholas Braun

Jason Mitchell

Ari’el Stachel

Sophie Hall

Ts Madison

Nelcie Souffrant

Rating: 5.9/10