Two years ago, Regina King lit up TIFF with her turn as Sharon Rivers in Barry Jenkins’ phenomenal If Beale Street Could Talk, a role that would go on to win her the Oscar for supporting actress. Here, she proves she’s just as brilliant behind the camera with One Night In Miami, her latest directorial effort; an impressive adaptation of the stage play of the same name, Kemp Powers adapting his own work.
The original play on which this is based has gained rightful international acclaim, its London staging at the intimate Donmar Warehouse in 2016 perfect for the one-location setting; a Miami hotel room on one fateful night in February of 1964. The film version expands on the solitary setting of the source material, opening with a staging of Cassius Clay’s first bout with Brit Henry Cooper in the summer of ’63. We are then introduced to the other three icons on which the story revolves around; legendary musician Sam Cooke (Lesley Odom Jr), NFL superstar Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), and human rights activist and minister, Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir). We meet Cooke as he’s about to take the stage at legendary New York City club, the Copacabana, hot of the success of his latest record ‘You Send Me’, and then Brown as he visits the plantation home of Beau Bridges ‘Mr. Carlton’ in his birthplace of St. Simons island off the coast of Georgia. Then it’s Malcolm X who we meet, introducing Elijah Muhammad, founder and spiritual leader of the Nation Of Islam on national television. All of these are new scenes, additions from the stage play for the feature and nicely set-up cinematically what’s to follow as the four unite on that fateful though fictional night in the Miami hotel room following Clay’s historic win over Sonny Liston gaining him the heavyweight championship.
It is a pivotal moment in all four men’s’ lives, Clay on the eve of his announcement of his conversion to Islam and becoming champ, Cooke toasting an already successful career, but wanting to maybe move away from his popular ballads for more profound offerings, Brown already looking further than his hugely successful NFL career and to the film world, and Malcolm X always glancing over his shoulder, FBI agents on his tail, full of thoughts of his own future, including a trip to Mecca and a plan to leave the Nation. All provide fuel for conversations amongst themselves in the four walls of the hotel where the film works best, particularly during the second half where their interactions become more heated amongst the four.
One Night In Miami – The Movie is wonderfully staged, from Powers’ lengthened script – the play was a taught 90 minutes, one act affair – through to King’s wonderful direction and four outstanding performances at the heart of the movie. Notably, Odom Jr is excellent as Cooke, his renditions of some of the musician’s biggest hits both jaw-dropping and extremely powerful. Eli Goree is superb and note-perfect as Clay, another great turn following his work on Race, but Kingsley Ben-Adir is the clear stand-out as Malcolm X, and gets most of the film’s best moments.
One Night In Miami is one of those movies that stays with you long after the credits roll, an extremely powerful and poetic final five minutes tagged onto proceedings hauntingly soundtracked by Cooke’s ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ ensuring that it’ll provide talking points as you leave the auditorium. The late singer’s lyrics have hope for a future, but one can’t help but shake you head and wonder that in the fifty-plus years that have followed, things have changed much at all. A beautifully poignant, sometimes funny, extremely moving film that is wonderfully told. Regina King is as huge a talent behind the camera as in front of it. Oscar starts here.
One Night In Miami
Summary
A beautifully poignant, sometimes funny, extremely moving film full of wonderful performances; the film proves Regina King is as huge a talent behind the camera as in front of it.
