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In “One Night in Miami”, director Regina King imagined a version of the February 25, 1964 meeting between four icons, Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) and soul legend Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.) heading towards a local liquor store to grab a bottle. It’s a clear night, and they meet two young men who first look at Cooke’s awesome sports car before exploding with joy as they recognize the boxer from his first world championship win.
Cooke sends the boys off with money to buy something for themselves, and the couple sit for a while in Cooke’s posh merry-go-round and deal with what awaits them in the hotel room where their two other companions Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) and Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) wait.
Malcolm and Cooke have just come from an intense discussion, with Brandon accusing the cross-singer of not using his success to help the civil rights cause. The liquor store run is how Cooke retires; back in his car expresses his frustration to Clay.
Playing the role of a sage from Cooke’s fighter’s corner, Clay tells the singer to shrug. “We have to be there for each other. Because no one else can understand what it’s like to be one of us,” Clay said, “You know: young, black, fair, famous , without excuse. “
Scenes and moments like these make it easy to understand why Regina King chose the Kemp Powers play for her directorial debut. King might as well be the embodiment of that truth, a multiple Emmy, Golden Globe, and Oscar winner who has found her wings through projects that tell the world about her past, present, and future.
Here, King lets narrative ingenuity permeate each image as it stays behind the camera, drawing us into this circle of legends, each representing distinct aspects of black identity and struggle.
“One Night in Miami” is specifically about these men, and it’s not the first work of about three out of four of them. But it is perhaps the first that allows us to know them in a hitherto undisclosed way both despite and because Kemp puts his vision between entry and exit points which are confirmed by the history.
The story is based on the night after Clay’s unexpected victory over reigning heavyweight champion Sonny Liston in February 1964, a fight that drew Brown, Cooke and Malcolm to Miami, Fla., To cheer him on. . The next morning, Clay confirmed his conversation with Islam at a press conference, reintroducing himself as Cassius X (he would not be officially known as Muhammad Ali until some time later.) that happened during the time they spent together in the interim. , no record exists.
But Kemp’s conjecture comes from a place of deep understanding of the burden of greatness and the unique effort it represents for a black man, even aspiring legends like them. Kemp writes this thesis for their individual personalities, and King shapes them for the screen not as icons but as men.
Cassius Clay’s victory is only a significant moment linked to this gathering, which Kemp presents as an unknown point where multiple stories converge.
With the majority of the action in his 114 minutes of execution taking place in a modest motel room, King and cinematographer Tami Reiker can’t help but point out the physical and spiritual closeness of these men, the passion of Malcolm serving as a bonding and reinforcing link in some scenes. and divider in the others. As simple as the setting is, Reiker films the interior with a glow and the exterior with a buoyancy that the characters either escape, as Clay and Cooke do, or band together.
Malcolm would make his pilgrimage to Mecca and publish his memoirs soon after, and a year after they met he would be murdered. Jim Brown’s first film role took place in the same year, launching an acting career that carried him through several decades during and after the end of his professional football career. Sam Cooke was already a successful hitmaker who released “A Change Is Gonna Come” the same year 1964.. . and unfortunately, being killed by a motel manager in December.
Kemp uses the fact that Brown’s first film and Cooke’s touching social justice piece also came out in 1964 to inspire the tense direction in which many conversations are heading.
Malcolm knows he’s being followed. Sam is rich and famous and can’t even book his own room at the fancy hotel he is staying at. Brown is an NFL record holder and the pride of his hometown, according to a supposed white family friend he visits at the start of the film. The man, played by Beau Bridges, is graceful and grins broadly as he showers the athlete with laurels, and he looks equally polite when he refuses to let him into his home, using a dehumanizing epithet which gently rolls its tongue like peach nectar.
Hodge, it has to be said, showcases his amazing talent for expressing his character’s emotion through his eyes and face even as he quietly utters his lines. That quiet expressiveness consistently fuels all of the best performances, and in it it pours a warmth and stoic force that grabs your attention every time it is presented.
The personal nature of even the toughest talks always points to the timeless question of what famous people and successes owe to those who struggle without enjoying the glory. It’s a movie that takes care to point out that the celebrity only releases the black stars to a limited extent and in some cases makes the target on their backs even brighter.
By virtue of its premise, “One Night in Miami” is a showcase for its cast. Where most historical fictions tend to expand documentation to tell a story, and where actors can consult photos or video footage to sculpt their depictions, this film finds life in conjecture about what goes on far from it. audience, cameras, where not needed. to put on a show.
In doing so, the actors, writer and director prioritize the humanity of these men rather than presenting another imitation of an icon.
This approach is most evident in Goree’s version of Clay and Ben-Adir’s re-enactment of Malcolm, two characters played by two of Hollywood’s biggest black stars. The actors retain enough of each man’s distinct idiolect that we can recognize their individual ways of speaking, but they also develop the familiar curve and edges of common imitations to give a sense of who they were and how they performed. in quieter times.
Gorée plays a version of the boxing legend who is newly famous but still with humor devoid of humility. Ben-Adir, who recently played Barack Obama on Showtime’s “The Comey Rule,” contrasts with a version of Malcolm aware of his mortality and the danger he has courted by telling white America the truth. It gives a mellow approach to his performance, showing Malcolm as a father and husband worried about which direction the wrestling is heading and the danger.
But here the actor walks into Malcolm’s sweet passion instead of taking inspiration from the grim face popularized by storybook photos, and it enriches the character in new ways.
Odom, however, steals the show at a time when it looks like Malcolm is ready to hammer him into the dirt. When Malcolm follows a runaway rejection of his greatest hits by playing Bob Dylan’s “Blowin ‘In the Wind” and asking him why a white man writes lyrics that do a better job of talking to black people than him, Odom launches Cooke from the President where he took it and changes it: Why can’t Malcolm stick to his focus on investing, owning, and growing businesses? And isn’t that as crucial to uplifting black Americans as words and songs? Odom recites this with the energy of a swordsman fighting to the death, and it’s amazing to watch.
The conflict is only a small part of “One Night in Miami”, yet another blessing King gives us by making this film. There are so many story-inspired black films that are colored with pain and so few that easily and securely rest in celebration, leaving the viewer with a sense of joy and blossoming pride.
At one point, one observes that black power, an expression that white Americans scare, is neither offensive nor aggressive. Power simply means a world where we are safe to be ourselves, he says. It’s King harnessing her power as a director for the first time, and what we’ve seen excites us to be part of future efforts.
“One Night in Miami” is currently airing on Amazon.
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