Sinners

There is a version of this film that is a mess. A period drama about twin brothers opening a juke joint in 1930s Mississippi, which then turns into a vampire siege, which then turns into a statement about who gets to own music. On paper that is three films fighting for the same runtime. Coogler just refuses to let any of them lose.

Michael B. Jordan playing both twins could have been a gimmick. Instead it is the quietest thing in the film. Smoke and Stack are separated by posture more than dialogue, and by the halfway point you stop clocking the trick entirely, which is the whole point of the trick.

The horror does not arrive until the film has earned it. That is a risk. It means the first hour is all hangout energy, rooms full of people, food, arguments about money. Then the door opens and the tone flips so hard you feel it in your chest. Horror works when you like the people. This film spends an hour making sure you do.

And the music. The centrepiece sequence, the one where the camera drifts through the room and time comes apart, is the single best few minutes of filmmaking we have seen in a long while. It is showing off. It has every right to show off.

Is it perfect? No. The last twenty minutes resolve a little neatly for something that spent its first ninety refusing to behave. But that is a small complaint about a film swinging this far above the fence.

Watch it loud. Watch it with people. Then argue about the ending in the car park like everyone else did.