Saturday, May 24, 2025

Sinners REVIEW – A Cinematic Blessing

Sinners is an enthralling work of art that casts a beguiling spell.

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Every year we beg for more original movies to save us from the graveyard of reboots, sequels and regurgitated content that’s being shoved down our throats. Sinners is the answer to that prayer, the salvation to our starved movie souls.

It all begins with a dream. After working in the cotton fields all day, Sammie (Miles Caton) desires a respite. All he wants to do is play his music for people who would enjoy and appreciate it. His cousins Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) have the means to make that happen. They’re opening a Juke joint, something just for their community and their people, and spend the day gathering all their friends and family to work in the place. But all that joy and exuberance quickly turns to horror as vampires show up to ruin the party.

Jordan is just brilliant in this. It’s never easy to take on a dual role, but he distinguishes Smoke and Stack through voice and physicality. I can always tell which brother he’s playing in the moment – I guess it also helps that both brothers wear different colours in case we need to keep track of them. As Smoke, he’s vulnerable, broken from his time as a soldier and still reeling from the loss of his child. Stack’s more light-hearted in contrast, always eager for a laugh, but also burdened by loss. He had something going on with Hailee Steinfeld’s Mary, but because she’s a white woman their relationship is transgressive and dangerous. As long as society is the way it is, the fear of miscegenation means that any public acknowledgement of their relationship would mean death for the both of them.

Despite her limited screentime, Steinfeld manages to beautifully telegraph all the hurt she feels from Stack’s rejection and decision to terminate their relationship without her input, as well as her mother’s recent passing. We want things to be different for her and Stack, but their relationship can only exist in a time like now, beyond the 1930s, where boundaries to love aren’t as distinct, though the myopic who cannot see beyond the colour of one’s skin are still a constant.

Sinners is director Ryan Coogler’s most personal film to date, a movie that wants us to consider what art means to us, and how important it is for artists to charge forward and make what they desire despite dissenting voices. Sammie makes beautiful music that speaks to people – that main musical set piece that connects black culture and music across time is goosebump-inducing – yet at every turn he’s asked to stop and concede to the status quo. Smoke tells him that he’s never met a happy musician, and advises him to retreat to spaces of the church. That’s what his father wants for him as well. Then we have Remmick, who wants to steal his music so that he can experience the stories of his own Irish culture.

Sinners is not a horror film, but its horror elements are fairly effective. The vampire design is great, and the vampire horde are genuinely terrifying. O’Connell’s performance as Remmick is one of the highlights of Sinners. He’s alluring, frightening, and remarkably in tune – it says a lot that the man can dance a whole Irish jig and I still find him absolutely chilling. There is many a jumpscare due to how alarmingly quick the vampires are, and the sudden transition from giddy enjoyment to wide-eyed horror really makes us wonder if all the beauty of dreams is worth it if this horror also lies in wait. Should Sammie give up music, especially since something so evil covets what he has? Is his gift then a sin, and all those who partake in the joy of that gift sinners? Maybe transgression is the way if you want to live life on your terms and not at the direction of others. Find your light, let it shine.

REVIEW SCORE: 4/5

Natasha Alvar
Natasha Alvar
Natasha Alvar became an English Lit teacher because of Dead Poets Society, only to realise that maybe no one cares about dead poets like John Keats. An idealist, a lover of rom-coms and chocolate cake, and takes fiction way too seriously for her own good. Find Natasha @litmysoul

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