How the Movie SINNERS Is Revolutionary to Me
This post is relatively spoiler-free
By now you might have heard / seen the buzz around the movie SINNERS. From the minute it debuted a couple of weeks ago, this Ryan Coogler joint has millions of folks worldwide in a chokehold. It’s a cinematic marvel, an artistic bacchanal, a cultural milestone, a feast for the senses and sensibilities, and a visionary creative mashup that demolishes rules, defies stereotypes, and detonates the restrictions of movie genres.
We’re celebrating how deftly it’s breaking box-office records and making history for Ryan Coogler’s brilliantly groundbreaking studio deal. Also revolutionary: with SINNERS, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, ASC become the first woman director of photography to shoot a movie on large format IMAX film.
Above all, SINNERS is a must-see for anyone who cares about Black people, lives, history, culture, art, music, ingenuity, survival, love, and mysticism. Caveat: Because the film depicts a few Hoodoo practices, staunch Christians who are deeply opposed to such depictions should probably avoid this movie. But everyone else should check it out!
Before I get into the ways that I find SINNERS to be revolutionary, here are a few basics:
This is the fifth film and the first completely original story from Ryan Coogler, 38, best known for directing Fruitvale Station, Creed, Black Panther, and Black Panther: Return to Wakanda.
SINNERS is a rich character-driven drama that utilizes elements of Southern Gothic horror and vampire lore to represent the challenges of Black life in the USA in the 1930s Mississippi Delta, and throughout our nation today. Like all of Coogler’s films, SINNERS stars Michael B. Jordan, this time as identical but very different twins: Smoke and Stack.
“Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.” — SINNERS synopsis on Rotten Tomatoes
The stellar cast includes Delroy mf’in Lindo, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Li Jun Li, Omar Benson Miller, Nathaniel Arcand, legendary Poet Saul Williams, Jayme Lawson, Jack O’Connell, Blues icon Buddy Guy, and newcomer Miles Caton, a stupendously talented 20-year-old singer who carries the heart of the film in his debut acting role! Bonus: members of the Choctaw Nation who set the tone for the entire story.
Describing SINNERS as “cinematic gumbo,” Coogler told Democracy Now that “I wanted to make a film that was kind of raging against the concept of genre and making the audience constantly question it, even while they were watching it.” He explained that SINNERS “celebrates Delta blues, music made by Black artists ‘living under a back-breaking form of American apartheid, … our country’s most important contribution to global popular culture.’”
The soul-thrumming music is a character and plot element unto itself; in fact, SINNERS is nearly a musical film. BUT no worries—if you don’t like musicals, this won’t offend your sensibilities! Plus. the costumes by Academy Award-winning designer Ruth E. Carter, acclaimed for her dazzling work in Coogler’s Black Panther films, provide that extra seasoning to the onscreen splendor.
Then there’s that one scene—no spoilers!—that blends Black Ancestral traditions, contemporary cultural touchstones, and Afrofuturism in a glorious vision that will forever expand our awareness of what is possible not just onscreen, but in life itself.
Okay, let’s get into the elements of SINNERS that I found revolutionary:
6. The right kind of inclusion. SINNERS is set in the very Black-and-white Mississippi Delta in 1930 during the height of Jim Crow. And while the story reflects that oppositional binary, members of the Choctaw Nation and Chinese immigrant communities are an essential part of the drama—and they’re presented in ways that are richly authentic and integral to the plot.
5. Healthy emotional balance. This multilayered story honestly depicts Black life in Jim Crow Mississippi while centering Black agency, creativity and joy and deftly avoiding the usual trauma porn.
4. Blackly piercing the veil. Ryan Coogler gives us next-level genius by seamlessly weaving Ancestral, period, and Afrofuturist elements via music, story, and visions while keeping each character and plot point grounded in the story as it unfolds.
3. Non-stereotypical HOODOO! SINNERS accurately presents the VERY first onscreen representation that I’ve seen of the Southern spiritual mashup that is Hoodoo without inaccurately stereotyping these spiritual practices as evil, demonic, and inherently harmful. Ryan Coogler wisely consulted with expert Dr. Yvonne Chireau to provide an accurate depiction of these rich traditions, and the result is delightfully uplifting.
2. Subverting Hollywood’s Addiction to Colorism! Not only is the character Annie (Smoke’s wife) a gifted Hoodoo practitioner, but SINNERS gifts us with the all too-rare visual glory of Wunmi Mosaku, a deeply-melanated Black woman with a real-life sized and shaped body who is not just gorgeous, but desirable, sensual, and often the smartest person in the room.
1. Finally Getting Racially Ambiguous Appearance Dynamics Right! I have a special appreciation for the character of Mary, an almost-white-looking woman whose grandfather was half-Black, making her what was then known as an Octoroon—one-eighth Black. She grew up in that Black community, and her quarter-Black mother helped to raise Stack and Smoke when their family was too dysfunctional. What’s revolutionary for me is the scene where Sammie—the one Black character who doesn’t know Mary—asks, “What are you?” When she responds, “I’m human,” he says, “That’s not what I mean.”
As tiny and perhaps insignificant as that moment probably was to most moviegoers, for someone like me who navigates that pesky query daily, it resonated deeply. Why? Because it is literally the ONLY time that I have EVER seen that dynamic presented accurately ANYWHERE—in a movie, book, TV series, etc.—in my entire life. And I’ve been hyper-vigilant about this thing for all of my many decades.
Another plus: Casting Hailee (whose grandfather is Black and Filipino) as Mary supports my personal preference for racially and ethnically accurate and representative casting.
Brilliant! Thank you!
Loved the film and plan to see it again.
Can’t wait to see it again- and I 💜 the ancestral/afro-futurist scene!!