Then there’s the amazement of King’s performance, which should finally get her the Oscar she’s deserved for years. Henry, one of the best character actors in the business, surpasses himself here by dropping Daniel’s macho swagger to reveal a terrified man stripped of his strength and dignity by the prison experience. In a devastating scene, Fonny talks over dinner with his friend Daniel (Brian Tyree Henry), just released from jail after two years. With rich details and a compassion that reflects his deep-seated humanism, the filmmaker shows us how racial animus extends its poison tentacles. Visiting her beau in prison, Tish’s voiceover reflects a feeling that echoes, then and now, through the black experience in America: “I hope that nobody has ever had to look at anybody they love through glass.” The chorus of complaints is echoed by his sisters (Ebony Obsidian and Dominique Thorne), with only their father (Michael Beach) expressing warmth. Her family - mother Sharon ( Regina King), father Joseph (Colman Domingo) and wonderfully mouthy sister Ernestine (Teyonah Parris) - offer support, even when the young man’s mother (Aunjanue Ellis) blames the girl for everything bad that happens to her son. The pregnant Tish feels lost, but not alone. Still, nothing shines long for Fonny, the Harlem artist who’s been framed by a racist cop (Ed Skrein) and imprisoned for the rape of a Puerto Rican woman. Jenkins wants to create a tone poem out of heartbreak. He’s not trying to give you gritty realism. The fact that they’re wearing bright colors, which channels the sunny opening of Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg instead of the Horror City of 1970s New York, tells you everything you need to know. Fonny (Stephan James), 22, strolling along the Hudson river. Following up his Best Picture Oscar win for Moonlight, the writer-director opens his third film with Tish Rivers (KiKi Layne), 19, and Alonzo Hunt, a.k.a. Love - intimate, familial and fraternal - infuses director Barry Jenkins’ ravishing adaptation of the 1974 James Baldwin novel about a battered romance that refuses to be a tragedy.
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