Courtesy of the Warner Bros.
“Phenomenal” is the first word that comes to mind whenever I think about “Sinners.” Within minutes of its start, I was absolutely captivated, and I remained that way for its entire run time of two hours and seventeen minutes, absorbing what I can only define as a cinematic masterpiece. For the first time in my life, this film left me sobbing as I processed it.
“It made me feel triumphant,” said senior Quincy Romero. “[At the end], my favorite song in the whole thing [started] playing and I couldn’t stop crying. I was sitting in the movie theater chair while people were [going] ‘time to go.’ And I was just like, ‘I can’t get up. That was phenomenal.’”
Set in 1930s southern America, the film follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack, played by Michael B. Jordan, and their nephew Sammy on their quest to set up a juke joint — purchased from white Ku Klux Klan members — with the purpose of making a profit and providing entertainment to their black community.
As they reach the climax of their night of bluesy celebration, several white vampires arrive to crash the party, hoping to steal Sammy’s incredible spiritual talents for blues music. As vampires, they must request
entry into the joint, forcing the characters into challenging predicaments of trust.
Eventually, the vampires have a full-scale invasion of the joint, killing many of its members and leaving only Smoke and Sammy standing in the end. A tattered Sammy chooses to hold onto his music, despite all the pain it caused him and against his father’s wishes, and a broken Smoke decides to take one final stand, killing the KKK members that sold him the joint under false pretense and seeing his family on the other side.
What made this already complex story more fascinating were its themes of assimilation and culture. The vampires are physically stripping the black community members of their ethnic background because they are sucking blood out of them, but the vampires are also figuratively trying to strip them of their black culture by taking their musical abilities for themselves, really slamming in the overarching point of assimilation.
As much as these themes of assimilation initially present themselves in 1930s Mississippi, the film’s messaging can still be extrapolated to the current day.
“If it’s coming out today, it’s commenting on things that are happening today,” said senior Andrew McColl. “Because it’s set in the past, it just makes a stronger point of this has always happened, and this is going to continue to happen … It’s all about staying true to yourself, breaking the rules and rebelling.”
Even the smallest details of the film are used to reinforce the message that assimilation is a vicious cycle, with the main vampire’s Irish background playing a part in the metaphor.
From the vampires to the KKK dealings, the white characters in the film work tirelessly against the aspirations of the strong, black characters in the film. McColl observes how the twins’ different approaches are used to depict different messages.
“Smoke doesn’t conform and he ends up having a genuine death, but he gets to see his wife and his daughter on the other side,” McColl said. “Even though it’s tragic, he still has the better ending in the film, compared to Stack, who’s more charismatic and more materialistic, and he seems to have a much happier time, but he becomes a vampire. And sure, he’s allowed to live [forever] technically, but the question is, if he really is living — he’s assimilated.”
Sammy, on the other hand, actually finds true success at the end of the film, when he becomes a famous Blues star, returning to McColl’s idea about the strength of music against assimilation.
“Sammy sticks to his music despite pressure from his father and pressure from the vampires for him to give it up or give it to them,” McColl said. “Sammy sticks with music because music is all we have, and music is the strongest form of rebellion we have. You either conform or you can break the rules and make something generational, like Blues music.”
Beyond its themes, the film’s overall quality is certainly a high point, with strong acting performances all around, with Jordan — a lead and marketing point for the film — acting as both Smoke and Stack with
immense precision.
“Seeing [Jordan] act as two different people was phenomenal,” Romero said. “It felt like two different people down to the way that they walk, their attitude, their facial expressions, the way
they dress.”
Though Jordan was the selling point, Miles Cayton’s performance as Sammy was another acting highlight.
“This is his first film role ever,” McColl said. “He says so much without saying anything at all. A lot of the
scenes, you can just watch his eyes and see how he’s feeling in that moment, and he’s really just a powerhouse that he becomes the covert lead of the film.”
As for the cinematography, the movie has impressive shots, some of them leaving me and others floored by the scene’s creativity. The “I Lied to You” scene in particular left me baffled as the screen panned around the ancestors in the juke joint.
“I love that scene, not because of what it means [to the story], but how it’s shot,” Romero said. “It really gives you the feel [that] you’re in the juke joint walking around and seeing everything.”
The final scenes of the film, in particular, left a lasting impact, leaving the audience with a satisfying conclusion to a fascinating story.
“When Smoke got to see [his dead wife] Annie and his child on the other side, that was phenomenal,” Romero said. “That was heart-wrenching. And then hearing Sammy singing the credits, I couldn’t
stop crying after that.”
This movie’s thematic strengths and high quality has left many entertained and deeply affected: raving about it with friends, discussing its plot and rethinking about its messages, even beyond all that was mentioned above.
