3/5
Written by Luke Barnes
Summary
Based on the infamous twitter thread, Zola tells the story of a road trip gone wrong, highlighting how easy it is for people to end up in dangerous situations.
I had no expectations for this film going in, I didn’t really keep up with the thread when it was viral, though I was aware of the story itself.
I found the film to be on the better side of average but nothing to write home about.
On the positive side I thought the film managed to perfectly nail the tension and produced several scenes that were captivating as they feel so unexpected and threatening. You could feel the danger these women would have been in, and honesty it is both terrifying and heart-breaking.
Moreover, Colman Domingo was magnificent as X, the pimp who runs the girls through the later stages of the story. Why the character works so well and why Domingo’s performance is so good is because it is unpredictable, one minute he is cool calm and collect and the next he is knocking someone through a wall, the character works as they are seemingly very spontaneous and that is reflected in the performance. Furthermore, the character represents the moral ambiguity of our tale as we don’t know who to trust or believe, none of these characters are morally good and each do good and bad things throughout the film complicating them further.
Switching gears, what didn’t work for me at all was the dialogue. I understand that the way the main two characters speak is based on the real life tweets, you even get the tweet sound here and there, but I would have preferred it if they could have written it as actual dialogue for the film rather than just inserting tweets. Not only is it hard to understand but it quickly becomes annoying and grating as you watch.
Overall, it has its moments, but the dialogue really brings it down.
Pros
Solid tension
An interesting premise
Domingo
Cons.
The dialogue
The performances from everyone other than Domingo
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Another Millennial Reviewer 