Sinners, the latest film from Ryan Coogler (Black Panther), is a lot of things: a scorching southern gothic, an irresistible vampire tale and a ravishing period drama. But at its most electrifying — and unexpected — it is also, arguably, a musical.
What: A genre-bending vampire epic set in the 1930s American south.
Starring: Michael B. Jordan (twice), Miles Caton, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku
Directed by: Ryan Coogler
When: In cinemas now
Likely to make you feel: Enraptured
Detractors of that genre shouldn’t let that keep them away. It’s but one element of a giddily ambitious, boundary-defying film with ideas to burn. Characters don’t spontaneously break out into song and dance; rather, the film’s themes of temptation and assimilation (stalwarts of the vampire genre) are expressed through the lilting rhythms of the blues, with musical performances silkily threaded through the narrative.
As the first entirely original film written and directed by Ryan Coogler, Sinners thrums with the unruly spirit of someone finally bursting free of the franchise blockbuster death spiral.
After stealing the show as revolutionary Erik Killmonger in Black Panther (and a brief cameo in its sequel), Michael B. Jordan’s fifth collaboration with Coogler sees him finally return to the centre of the frame, pulling double duty as gangster twins, Smoke and Stack.
“I had the good fortune knowing a few set of twins … and they gave me stuff to pull from,” Michael B Jordan told Deadline. (Supplied: Warner Bros)
(One a side note: alongside Mickey 17, Severance and A Different Man, Sinners continues an extraordinary streak for actors splitting off into tricksy duelling performances.)
The film kicks off in 1932 — the tail end of prohibition — with the brothers’ purchase of a dilapidated sawmill. Its white owner, despite his palpable loathing, can’t quite believe the bag of cash he’s been handed, and declines to ask further questions.
Having spent the last seven prosperous years in Chicago (where they’re rumoured to have worked with Al Capone), the brothers have returned to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi, along with their riches and 500 bottles of Irish beer. Their ill-gotten gains are, in fact, the beginnings of an honest life: Smoke and Stack intend to convert the mill into a raucous juke hall where the local community can blow off steam.
“There’s such wonderfully drawn out allegories in there, and messages and questions that [the movie] brings up,” Wunmi Mosaku told IndieWire. (Supplied: Warner Bros)
Initially differentiated by their choice of coloured accessory — Smoke’s blue cap, Stack’s earthy fedora — the brothers comprise two distinct, damaged halves of the same whole. The former is a hard-bargaining, level-headed criminal; the latter ambitious and more emotionally driven, with all types of lust curled into his crooked smile.
Both are imbued with an attuned sensibility by Jordan, who evokes their pained inner lives when they’re reunited with past loves. For Smoke, it’s the local Hoodoo merchant, Annie (Wunmi Mosaku; Loki), while Stack is pursued by Hailee Steinfeld’s Mary — a younger, mixed-race woman with a fiercely cunning streak.
“I think he [Ryan Coogler] brings the best out of everyone … and you just rise to the occasion when he’s around.” Hailee Steinfeld told BuzzFeed. (Warner Bros)
Key to their plans is their little cousin Sammie (a star-making turn from R&B singer Miles Caton), a sharecropper and guitarist with a preternatural talent for soul (and earth) shaking blues. His musical prowess might well be a mandate from God, but his pastor father disagrees: “You keep dancing with the Devil, one day he’s going to follow you home,” he warns.
The film’s first half culminates in one of the most rapturous shots in recent memory: when Sammie sings, the camera (helmed by Gia Coppola’s go-to cinematographer, Autumn Durald Arkapaw) glides through the packed mill as the performance blossoms into a séance, where visions of the future — an electric guitarist, a rapper, and other branches of Black culture — collide with the past.
It’s music so true, “it can pierce the veil between life and death,” Annie intones. Speaking of which, Sinners’ accompanying score is unlike anything you’ll hear this year — an audacious fusion of genres and tones melded with virtuosic flair by longtime Coogler collaborator Ludwig Göransson (Oppenheimer).
“If a role is coming with this mixed bag of additional requirements, you have to charge at it,” O’Connell told Hero Magazine. (Supplied: Warner Bros)
From that metaphysical breach, a trio of white vampires emerge, led by Jack O’Connell’s (Back to Black) salivating Remmick. Details of the film’s second act, in which the villains terrorise the juke hall, have been needlessly spoiled by its trailers; a shame, as Coogler wrenches real pathos from Sinners’ barnstorming supernatural turn.
The ensuing stand-off is visceral and unsparing — recalling anything from 2015’s Green Room and 1968’s Night of the Living Dead — but draws its greatest tensions from the relationships exhumed in the film’s patient first hour.
Sinners avoids the obvious subtext, and instead feints towards a slippery narrative about the Faustian bargain offered to people of colour across all sects of white society: the exchange of your soul for a seat at the table. Having formerly lived as an Irishman in early America, Remmick shares a meaningful understanding of that marginalisation, and — in his own, toothsome way — offers liberation from that pain.
“This is a movie that’s meant … for the movie-going experience,” Jordan told AP about Sinners being shot in IMAX format. (Supplied: Warner Bros)
Horror fans might yearn for something a little less polished, leaning more into ice-cold terror than fiery bombast — but like any good vampire film, Sinners is a magnificently sensual experience. Shot on IMAX and ultra-wide 70mm film, Arkapaw’s cinematography (burnished with creamy shallow focus) lends an irresistible texture to weathered skin and pitch-black blood.
After being stranded in superhero tedium, Coogler’s return feels like a director brought back to life, and channelling every ounce of creative energy into a go-for-broke genre epic like no other. As the end credits roll (stick around for a surprise coda) , you’ll be dying for another bite.
Sinners is now showing in cinemas.
