Zola

A recent release whose backstory is probably more interesting than the film which was made. Published as a Rolling Stone article from a series of tweets a little while back, a professional pole dancer (no stripping, please!) embarked w/a newly minted friend for a wild weekend in Florida to hit some poles, make some money & have a helluva good time to tell about. The mirth turns however when the new bae expects her to participate tricking in hotels along the sandy strip w/a menacing pimp & her doofus of a boyfriend watch on. Starring Taylour Paige (from the also recent Boogie) & Riley Keough (Elvis Presley's granddaughter) as the mismatched ladies of the night, the film gets a lot of mileage from its premise which only flounders when things get a bit too real for the startled Paige who stays out of the action for the most part, only to step up when she feels Keough is selling herself (sorry!) too short. Also starring the mercurial Coleman Domingo as the pimp, Nicholas Braun (currently on HBO's Succession) as the dimwitted beau & Jason Mitchell (Easy E from Straight Outta Compton) as a Florida denizen who tries to make a move on Keough (who is making a solid career playing character roles in indie films, remember her as the pig girl in Magic Mike?).

I love that it was from zola's pov through the whole movie, it added something that i havent felt in a while.

Films have been based on one-line pitches. Brief synopses, and, perhaps most infamously a napkin (Jean Luc-Godard and Menahem Golan at Cannes for KING LEAR); therefore, a long series of tweets might seem like a encyclopedia by a comparison as the basis of ZOLA. Of course, it's not the length of the basic text that is crucial in turning it into a successful movie, but, how it's adapted.

Here, Director Janicza Bravo and her co-Writer Jeremy O. Harris warn the viewer up front that their screenplay is only "mostly true". The script follows the outline of the tweets (the names have mostly been changed save for the title character). A part-time Detroit stripper Zola (Taylour Paige) meets another exotic dancer, Stefani (Riley Keough) and after a fast friendship the pair head down to Tampa to have fun and make some money dancing. Stefani initiates the invite and she is accompanied by her slacker boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun) and a scary dude referred to as "X" (Colman Domingo). Zola quickly comes to realize that it was all a ruse to actually have the two woman rake in dough as prostitutes.

The early part of the film with Zola and Stefani texting back and forth, making videos, carousing and having a good time is energetic and well paced. It's when the story turns darker that the movie falls down. The tone is never consistent - one moment someone is assaulted, the next they are prancing around. Nothing is ever sustained. Still, the tonal issues pale versus the lack of a clear and strong perspective. The entire project is supposedly based on Zola's tweets, yet that device is dropped fairly early (save for the constant Twitter whistle sound used to punctuate scenes - even when no tweeting is going on). There are scenes that follow Derreck and X. Stefani gets a quick montage showing her side of the story for a minute or two. There is no momentum. No drive. Just a string of scenes loosely based on tweets.

Paige and Keough are vibrant actresses and give the film what spark it has. Domingo is genuinely frightening while Braun is fitfully amusing as the hapless patsy in the game. The movie is shot on 16mm apparently to either mimic a documentary look, or, perhaps to represent what grainy cellphone footage may look like - but, it succeeds at neither. It just looks washed out, far too often.

While there is some inherent interest in such a bizarre 'true story', there simply isn't enough on screen to justify a feature length film (even at 86 minutes). The Tweets are still online, as is the magazine article (along with a reddit thread by Stefani). Read the. The movie plays exactly like what it is: A movie based on a magazine article* which in turn is based on a bunch of tweets.

I anxiously await TikTok The Movie.

* David Kushner's Rolling Stone article "Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted"

Zola is one of those movies where you either love it or hate it. I had many struggles with it early on as i couldn't quite grasp what it was going for. There are a lot of uncomfortable moments relating to prostitution which are quite disturbing but on the other hand, some genuine comedic scenes shine through. The part where they do the @Stefani was hilarious and some physical comedy like the boyfriend jumping from the beach house and seeing the aftermath are really well done. A mixed bag with another great characterization from Riley Keough.

Zola is pure, uncut black market Florida. Like Sprinbreakers or Florida Project, it IS the state incarnate - or at least what's so endlessly scrollable about it). It's also a riotous funny dark comedy about how uncanny and gross the sex work world is (visa vi Backpage and so on), but also how black women always seem to have to come to the emotional and physical rescue of white women. And ironically as much as I love Paige and Keough's performances here (the latter sounding like she listened/watched a lot of Nikki Minaj's Anaconda song and or video, a fully sincere compliment), Braun - Greg from Succession, a true treasure at playing dumb and awkward, and Colman Domino's X (and his going between two accents just ::chefs kiss::) are stunning in their perfection of identifying an authenticity of these people. That's the key here: as wild as this gets, we always believe the people... at least as far as Zola's oh maybe 85-90% reliable narrator takes us.

I do wonder if this will have the same punch once the surprise wears off on a repeat viewing, but for now I can bask in the glow of this magnificently directed and truly modern comic exploitation yarn. The secret MVPs here though are the background detail players, like the two kids repeating the same basketball moves on the balcony at the motel or the couple performing whatever the hell music that is in the hotel lobby when Zola comes storming in.