'Sinners': The Life and Death of the Party
Ryan Coogler crosses Southern Gothic with supernatural horror to create a dazzling story about creation, appropriation, and stagnation.
When does a culture die? Judging by Ryan Coogler’s new movie Sinners, a culture dies when it stops creating and moves more towards appropriation and imitation. And because Coogler is brilliant, he’s able to tell this story using one of cinema’s oldest monsters: vampires. Bloodsuckers may seem like an odd fit for the setting of 1932 Mississippi, but Coogler slots them in perfectly as he seeks to tell a story about how true artistry can bring people together across time, but it’s just as liable to bring in those who don’t appreciate art as much as they want to consume, own, and bastardize it.
Surprisingly, Coogler keeps the vampirism in his back pocket for almost half the movie. Instead, he sets us up for a rich Southern Gothic steeped in the Black experience as identical twin brothers Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan) return home after becoming notorious gangsters up in Chicago. Smoke is the deadly serious of the two while Stack lays on the charm. They’re opening a juke joint in an old sawmill, and feel like the wealth they’ve accrued in Chicago could make them power players at home. They bring in their young cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), a gifted blues guitarist who wants to escape from the overbearing morality of his Preacher father (Saul Williams). The duo also recruits local friends along with old flames. They’re two brothers seeking to build a future but surrounded by their pasts.
In Sinners, the past and future can exist in harmony, but they can also represent a netherworld. The prologue tells us about music so powerful it can create a liminal space where the past and future coexist, and we see this happen in a stunning scene where Sammie’s music brings in old shamans of West Africa to the hip-hop artists of the 1980s and 90s. It’s a beautiful way of showing how art can break apart time to show its influences and pave the way for a brighter future.
But the prologue also notes that when this space opens, it lets in demons, and that’s how we meet Remmick (Jack O’Connell), a vampire building an army, but whose main desire is to get a hold of Sammie. The vampire stuff is a bit jarring at first, and it can be a bit of a shift to go from the rich textures of a story that feels more akin to A Streetcar Named Desire and Mudbound to the pulpy pleasures of films like From Dusk till Dawn and Fright Night. However, as the film irons out how it sees vampires, their presence starts to make more sense.
Although these vamps adhere to typical vampire rules (can’t enter a place without permission, allergic to garlic and holy water, can be killed by stakes and sunlight, can turn other people into vampires with just a bite), we’re told by Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), the local mystic and Smoke’s former love, that the vampires here are stuck souls. A demon has crept in and prevented the human soul from reaching the afterlife, creating a nefarious purgatory where they hold all memory, but lack the power to move forward. In this framework, it’s easy to see why Remmick hungers primarily after Sammie: he wants to possess an artist capable of true creation because the vampire and his minions are only capable of imitation.
Coogler purposely makes the vampire stuff a little tricky because it’s clear he doesn’t want to say that the vamps represent white supremacy and call it a day. Instead, he draws out the lines of white supremacy as a stagnating force, noting how it seeks to absorb the Black experience while neither respecting nor contributing to it. Remmick and his minions do Irish jigs and folk-inspired tunes, but that’s only because that comes from Remmick’s Irish heritage. He doesn’t seek to commune with Black music; he wants to own it, and that makes it more insidious than simply saying that the vampires represent white bigots. This is a framework where they represent the death of culture into a bland homogenization that claims it’s creating harmony but only wants to play a single, selfish note.
Of course, you don’t have to delve into the subtext to enjoy Sinners. Coogler is one of the finest filmmakers working today, and Sinners is a lush, rich experience from its opening frames. Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s cinematography is downright stunning, and composer Ludwig Göransson crafts some of his finest work in finding a way to bring music together across times and genres in a way that sounds natural and complementary. The whole cast is outstanding with Michael B. Jordan once again turning in one of the best performances of his career by teaming up with Coogler, and Delroy Lindo stealing almost every scene as an old Blues man. You also can’t sleep on Caton, who makes his acting debut here and immediately leaves an impression with a deep, smoky voice coupled with an intense yet unassuming demeanor.
I’m not sure what audiences will make of this genre hybrid, but Sinners tells us we can’t get too hung up on audience expectations. For Coogler, the importance is on creation to form community rather than appropriation to form legions. For a director who has spent his last two features in the Marvel machine and will likely return for a third go-round as Black Panther director, Sinners stands as an important statement that he’s not here to appease everyone. Coogler is here to bring the house down and build something that lasts rather than disposable fare to be consumed.
Recommendations
You may have spotted a photo of Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer covering her face in the Oval Office in a moment that seemed straight out of Veep. The governor was trying to thread the needle of working with Trump without being seen working with Trump, and whoops, that didn’t work. As Brian Beutler points out, there’s an entire class of Democratic politicians who only listen to strategists rather than having any convictions or understanding of the larger political landscape. They’re always leading from the back, and it makes them look like fools. Some may argue that working with the Republican administration is simply the hard work of politics, but if there are no red lines like tariffs created on a whim or people deported off to foreign gulags, then marginal deals related to local manufacturing don’t matter as much.
What I’m Watching
I spent last week watching Superman movies for an article I’m working on, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we have yet to receive a Superman movie that’s great from start to finish. Even Richard Donner’s beloved Superman has some clunky plotting and succeeds largely to some memorable imagery, John Williams’ iconic score, and Christopher Reeve’s pitch-perfect performance as both Clark Kent and the Man of Steel. But that franchise started to fall apart almost as soon as it was crafted with Donner fired from Superman II and replaced by Richard Lester, Superman III being a bloated mess (although I love it when Kryptonite turns Superman into a huge jerk), and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace looking like it barely covered the cost of craft services let alone the special effects budget.
Some may find this take controversial, but I believe Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns to be the best Superman movie. It’s far from perfect (and understandably memory-holed as it only spawned one installment, and Singer along with Lex Luthor actor Kevin Spacey are allegedly sexual predators), but it also does a lot of stuff right like focusing on Superman saving people rather than punching bad guys, and zeroing in on how lonely he must be as a guy caught between two worlds. I’m certainly curious to see how James Gunn approached the character, and we’ll find out when his Superman reboot opens on July 11th.
Over on television, I’m getting into the weekly episode review game with The Last of Us. You can check out my take on the Season 2 premiere over at Decoding TV:
What I’m Reading
I finished reading Animal Farm (good stuff, but understandably assigned for children who don’t know what totalitarianism is), and now I’ve moved on to Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely. I’m enjoying it so far, but the way protagonist Philip Marlowe describes people makes me wonder if Chandler spent his days people-watching and thinking of creative ways to describe how ugly they look. At one point Marlowe describes a drunken old woman as a “washtub.”
In other reads:
Cheap Consumer Goods Are the American Dream, Actually by Amanda Mull [Bloomberg] - I loved the historical background Mull provides here showing consumerism as the backbone of not only the American identity but American soft power, and seeking to shove people into manufacturing jobs while also forcing them to pay higher prices for goods is not the winning formula that the Trump administration thinks that is.
Americans Must Prepare to Fight for the Citizenship Rights of U.S. Prisoners by Sherrilyn Ifill [Sherrilyn’s Newsletter] - There’s rightly been a lot of focus on Kilmar Abrego García, an innocent man abducted and trafficked to a gulag in El Salvador. However, as Ifill points out, our compassion cannot stop at only those deemed “innocent,” but must extend to all prisoners. We have a shoddy justice system where it’s disturbingly easy to take people, especially poor people of color, brand them criminals, and toss them in prison. The notion that what’s happening right now will only happen to the worst of the worst is delusional, and even if it were true, that’s still no excuse to discard due process or refuse to hold people on American soil.
The Tariff Saga Is about One Thing by Jamelle Bouie [The New York Times] - Major media has gone from sanewashing Trump during the 2024 Presidential Campaign to sanewashing his second term. If a reporter asked Trump directly, “What is a tariff?” I doubt he’d be able to answer accurately. But as Bouie points out, to try and find rationale here or some sound economic policy is a fool’s errand, and not worth pursuing. Everything for Trump is about dominance. He sees tariffs as a way to assert dominance over other countries and the American economy, and since he doesn’t believe that any arrangement could ever be mutually beneficial, he needs to make sure America “wins.” This, of course, keeps backfiring because he’s both a moron and a coward, but we would all be wise to stop looking for method in the madness and accept that there’s only madness.
What’s Wrong with Apple? by Tripp Mickle [The New York Times] - While it would be premature to say that Apple is in a tailspin, this article does a good job of explaining why the company is struggling with new products. I don’t agree with the assertion that Apple is an innovative company (their skill comes as streamlining existing ideas and products into their most consumer-friendly version), but it is worth noting the problems with both VisionPro and Apple Intelligence. The former never seemed like a product that could have mass appeal at its price point, and Apple Intelligence is part of an A.I. arms race that isn’t worth fighting. I’m not sure what this means for the company’s future, but I guess they feel like they have to manufacture more than just useful black rectangles.
The Eight-Year Journey Behind ‘Blue Prince,’ the Year’s Best-Reviewed Video Game by Jason Schreier [Bloomberg] - Blue Prince is a fascinating first-person puzzle game, and I loved this profile of the game’s designer Tonda Ros. While creating video games isn’t easy, those who aspire to do so should take heart that Ros didn’t have a background in game design, but managed to follow his passion into creating this beloved indie game that’s sure to be among the year’s best.
What I’m Hearing
Last week, Harvey Danger released a vinyl for the 25th anniversary of their second album, King James Version. I didn’t get a copy because I’m not standing in a line for Record Store Day when I have spring allergies, but it did spur me to give the album another listen, and I still enjoy it!
I’ve also been listening to the Sinners Official Playlist, and I expect many people will do the same after seeing the movie to get an idea of all the inspirations Coogler and Göransson relied upon.
What I’m Playing
I fully expected to dive into Indiana Jones and the Great Circle this week, but nope! I’m enraptured by Blue Prince. I’ve got my little notebook full of clues, and I want to see where the game takes me.