ZOLA (2021)

Written by Janicza Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris



Directed by Janicza Bravo



Where & When: TCL Chinese Theatres, Hollywood, CA. July 6, 2021 5:35PM



It all started with a tantalizing Tweet: "Y'all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out?????? It's kind of long but full of suspense" and the world became transfixed on Aziah "Zola" King's story. The filmmaker, Janicza Bravo has taken King's collection of short ruminations and expanded them in to a thrilling feature film that takes us on a wildly irreverent, hilariously dark journey. And even though we are told that the events in this story are "mostly true" during the opening credits, there is never a doubt for a moment that what we see happening in this film has been wildly embellished.

Zola (Taylour Paige) was working at her dead-end job at a Detroit diner when everything changed once Stefani (Riley Keough) entered the restaurant and her life. Their connection was immediate and intense with these two women becoming fast friends. Aware that she dances occasionally to supplement her income, Stefani invites Zola to join her on a road trip to a Florida strip club where they will earn a huge payday.

But once the car door closes, Zola feels this might be a big mistake. Along for the trip is the driver, Stefani's roommate who will only be known as "X" (Colman Domingo), an imposing figure that will make one uncomfortable even when he's smiling and Derrek (Nicholas Braun), Stefani's boyfriend, a gullible dimwit who worships the ground she walks on.

Once the group reaches Tampa, Zola's instincts prove correct. After dumping Derrek off at filthy motel, the girls head to the club. At the end of the shift, Zola didn't make anywhere near the amount of money she was promised. But the evening is far from over. It turns out that Stefani lured Zola on this trip under a false pretense; "X" is Stefani's pimp and the girls are expected to turn tricks all night in a luxury suite. And "X", whose actual Caribbean accent comes out when he's angry, will not take "no" for an answer.

Trying to build a movie around a Twitter thread was always going to be a bit of a challenge so Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris (the award-winning playwright of "Slave Play" who was a promising student dramatist at Yale when he came on board) also used the 2016 Rolling Stone article, "Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted" by David Kushner to help them flesh out their screenplay. The tone remains largely light and comedic despite the dark undercurrent of the harrowing lives that sex workers have to endure. Race and privilege is also touched upon with Zola being made clear, implicitly and explicitly, that Stefani holds more value as a commodity due to her being pretty, blonde and white.

As we know, there are two sides to every story and "Zola" is King's version of events, which paints her out to be a streetwise and far too classy for these people. As Zola, Paige lets her expressive face reveal the annoyance and frustration of the situation she finds herself trapped in. We will have to take King's word about what really went down but the woman who Stefani is based upon plans on suing for defamation, unhappy with how she has been portrayed. 

Keough delivers a brave and compelling performance as Stefani, a chatterbox speaking in her idea of an African-American dialect. The film doesn't make it clear if she's just a ruthless manipulator or a victim of her circumstances yet she was fully involved with seducing Zola. There is a brief mini-movie that's supposed to give Stefani a chance to tell her side, with her trying to be viewed as a virtuous woman who fell victim to the dirty dealings of a devious Zola, with hay in her hair and wearing trash bags. That's not exactly believable either but like many hustlers, they are far more interested in a great, juicy story than the boring, exact truth.

Ms Bravo began her career writing and directing several short films before making her feature debut, "Lemon" in 2017. I saw this film, a quirky comedy that starred Bravo's then-husband, Brett Gelman as a theater director who becomes unhinged after his blind girlfriend dumps him while he's trying to put on an unusual production of Chekhov's "The Seagull". And while I found "Lemon" to be largely tedious, I did think that the novice filmmaker actually showed promise. With "Zola", Bravo was able to tap in to her offbeat instincts with a narrative that would benefit from her distinctive storytelling, expanding a dark and twisted story with surreal visual flourish and pitch black humor. 

I enjoyed this movie, greatly admiring the remarkably inventive approach Ms Bravo has taken to tell Zola's outrageous story and laughed out loud several times throughout (the biggest laugh for me was when a white patron tells Zola while she is dancing that she looks like Whoopi Goldberg . I'm still chuckling days later at that one). But I can also understand how "Zola" might be too bleak and disturbing for some viewers. At it's core, "Zola" is tragic and sad; two abused and exploited sex workers exploiting each other for the service of men and the almighty dollar. It is really hard to completely escape this fact no matter how humorously or stylishly this entertaining story is told.