Golden Globes 2021: One Night in Miami
Based on the opening scenes of One Night in Miami, I was a bit worried it was going to be a sports movie. I am pleased to report that it definitely was not.
Directed by Regina King and adapted from his own play by Kemp Powers (who also helped write Pixar’s most recent film, Soul), One Night in Miami is an imagined meeting between four prominent Black men in 1964- musician Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), football star Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), boxing champion Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), and revolutionary activist Malcom X (Kingsley Ben-Adir). The bulk of the film takes places in X’s hotel room following Clay’s winning boxing match that made him the world heavyweight champion. Over the course of the night, the four men discuss their lives as Black men in the public eye and their roles in advancing the freedoms of Black people in America, often coming into conflict about how to best do their part.
While the film is not driven by action or plot and is focused intensely on ideas and characters, Powers’ prowess as a playwright and screenplay writer endowed the film with a rhythm that often felt musical. As the four men wove in and out of topics and came into conflict with one another, it reminded me of listening to a jazz band improvise. The actors, guided by the directorial eye of King and the words provided by Powers, were able to hold back when other men’s stories were the focus and hold space in the proverbial spotlight when it was time for them to tell their stories.
While Leslie Odom Jr. is the only nominated actor out of the four, and I think the accolade is well deserved, I would commend all of them for their performances and, if it were up to me, which once again, it is not, I would also nominate Kingsley Ben-Adir, another Brit out to steal American jobs, who embodied the iconic Malcolm X with a poise and gentleness I’ve never seen. In my experience of the American public education system, Malcolm X is either excluded or held up as the radical to Martin Luther King Jr.’s peacekeeper, when the reality is they were both immensely radical human beings, MLK has just been the one sanitized enough to be palatable for the white gaze. Of course, Malcolm X is still a controversial figure, and the film doesn’t shy away from the parts of his activism that can draw criticism, like his allegiance with certain figures in the Nation of Islam and certain aspects of his rhetoric. His arguments with Sam Cooke, who X derides for letting down the Black community by performing for predominantly white audiences, are all explored fully and each man is allowed to have his opinions and emotions on full display. The film isn’t propaganda for the deification of Malcolm X, it’s a conversation between fictional versions of these iconic men, and allows them to live and breathe in a way that I can’t recall ever seeing on screen or stage.
I also can’t remember ever seeing Muslim characters or Islamic rituals portrayed with nuance on screen (I have seen plays and read books that do this well). The only other film that comes to mind is Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani’s The Big Sick, in which Nanjiani, playing a version of himself, only pretends to still be a practicing Muslim in view of his parents, but otherwise has distanced himself from the faith. It felt very significant to see Black Muslim men portrayed on screen in the fullness of who they are.
Additionally, even though the focus of the film was on men (no Bechdel test passing here), I think they did a really excellent job of keeping women in the orbit of the characters and showing how present they were in the lives of these men, specifically Betty X (Joaquina Kalukango) and Barbara Cooke (played by Leslie Odom Jr.’s real life wife, Nicolette Robinson!). We all know the hackneyed saying, “behind every strong man is a strong woman,” but it wasn’t until I saw the play Socrates at The Public a few years ago that I began to examine my knowledge of history’s great men through the lens of the women in their lives. Socrates included his wife Xanthippe (a name I had only ever previously heard on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) in the narrative and showed how his decisions to live a scholarly life in poverty and, ultimately, be executed, impacted her life and the lives of her children. Seeing Betty X and her children contributed to that awareness. I’ve never imagined Malcolm X as a husband and a father before seeing him portrayed that way on screen.
Movies. They’re fucking important! I just love stories so much.
I’m curious to see how One Night in Miami fares this awards season among other socially conscious, highly relevant content, but on the less flashy end of the Oscar-baity film spectrum. I do hope to see the work of Black writers and directors, especially Black women in those categories, honored in the industry, and hope that this film is only a harbinger of what is to come.