Sinners
“You keep dancing with the devil…one day he’s gonna follow you home,” so says the preacher (played by actor Saul Williams) to his gifted musician son Sammie (brilliantly acted by Miles Caton) in the film Sinners. The preacher has a point, but it’s hard to resist wanting to move to the music while listening to Sammie on the guitar. Blues music puts the film’s characters into a thrall and casts its spell on the movie’s audience, as well. There is so much about Sinners that is artistic and laudable: the acting, Ryan Coogler’s writing and directing, Ruth E. Carter’s costume design, and basically the prowess of an array of talented technicians in various cinematic skills. Ultimately, though, what is most stunning about the film is the musical score composed by Ludwig Göransson. It is not only essential to the film’s narrative; it is the emotional core of the movie.
Composer Göransson is Swedish. His reverence for Blues music began with his father, who was an ardent appreciator of the genre. Since Ludwig was the musical composer for the previous four films that Ryan Coogler wrote and directed, it was natural that the two talents, who were classmates at USC Film School, would again collaborate. Göransson’s score for Coogler’s Black Panther (2018) won the composer the first of his Academy Awards. His second win was for the film Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan (2023). It appears that Göransson is on the fast track for his third Oscar with Sinners. That is, if there’s integrity. The scope of this score includes Irish jigs and ballads, pulsating dance rhythms, juke joint fare, haunting rhapsodies that lead to musical reveries. And the Blues, bigtime.
Moving on to the considerable talents of Göransson’s former USC Film School classmate, what Ryan Coogler achieved in Sinners is remarkable. His screenplay, set in the Mississippi Delta of 1932, is a hybrid of movie genres. At once a horror film about vampires, a gangster movie, and a musical, it succeeds in each. The narrative depicts Sammie’s relationship with his two cousins, identical twins Smoke and Stack (excellently enacted by Michael B. Jordan) who have a dubious relationship with morals and the law. Smoke and Stack, Veterans of World War I, have returned to their home turf after working for the Chicago Outfit. Financed by their ill-gotten gains, the brothers buy a sawmill and transform it into a juke joint for the African American denizens. In addition to the dangers of racist White folk, an Irish vampire (a fine turn by actor Jack O’Connell) has come to town. He turns two White locals into bloodsucking fellow balladeers of Emerald Isle inspired tunes. Yes, this sounds batshit crazy, and it is. But Coogler, also wearing the director’s hat, makes it work.
He is aided in the creative process by Jordan, who has appeared in five of the films directed and written by Coogler. Jordan imbues twins Smoke and Stack with identifiable differences in speech, carriage, and mannerisms. He conveys fraternal bonding along with sibling conflict in a way that is accessible and comprehensible. Other memorable performances in the film come from actors Delroy Lindo, as an elderly alcoholic musician, Hailee Steinfeld, as a heartbroken mixed-race woman who can pass as Caucasian, and Li Jun Li, packing a wallop as a savvy Chinese business owner who must weigh odds that have huge ramifications.
In addition to all the praise I’ve heaped upon the film, there’s also a warning to those who might choose to leave the theater before the credits end: You will miss the denouement of the movie. It’s wedged in and is extremely important to the arc of the story. Be patient and settle in to listen to the glorious closing music while you wait.
