Zola
A24Strippers and prostitutes and murderers, oh my! That might as well be the tagline for Zola, the latest A24 project that stars Taylour Paige as a part-time stripper who gets lured by a new friend down to Florida for a raucous road trip that soon goes off the rails. The movie is based on a series of real-life tweets (and a subsequent Rolling Stone article) by the real-life stripper, Aziah “Zola” King, and, like a tweet, often feels sensationalized and a little bit shallow. The director, Janicza Bravo, and screenwriters, Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris, know as much, warning their audience at the beginning that not all that follows is true. Nevertheless, it is hard to shake the feeling that they could have done a little more to add depth to these characters instead of simply transcribing the (albeit entertaining) story.
Zola will undoubtedly bring comparisons to another A24 project about strippers and pimps on a Florida road trip: Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers. That film also has surface-level characters, but it felt deep on a thematic level, almost as if Korine was critiquing an entire subculture of America. Zola never quite reaches that level of sophistication, though it tries in parts, including a lingering shot of a confederate flag that Zola and her acquaintances drive past.
Despite the lacklustre thematic considerations and simple characters, those acquaintances do a lot towards making Zola as enjoyable as it winds up being. Riley Keough is the new friend who lures Zola on the trip in the first place, and her wide-ranging eccentricities always make her allegiances questionable, even when the movie is telling its audience precisely who she is. Nicholas Braun is her “boyfriend”, and he is practically a second coming of his breakout role in Succession as Cousin Greg. He is simultaneously a pathetic loser to laugh at and a sad sack to feel sympathy towards. And then there is Colman Domingo’s terrifying turn as X. It would spoil part of the fun to reveal his exact role, but it is also not that hard to see coming. Either way, he occupies every inch of space whenever he is on-screen, and it is impossible to take eyes off him (or off his eyes, for that matter, which are two different colors in the film).
Paige also gives a believable performance, though her protagonist could have used a little more fleshing out. She serves as a proxy for the audience, wanting adventure and excitement but alarmed when things take a turn for the worse. She is the most “normal” character in the movie, and that, unfortunately, makes her less of a compelling watch than the other oddballs she is stuck with. She is also a passive protagonist, not getting many opportunities to make choices that will change the course of the narrative. The film’s general atmosphere does not help in this area either, making the whole thing feel like pre-ordained fate.
However, Bravo’s directorial style does nicely complement the tweet-based nature of the film. She directs Zola like a fever dream, full of dissolves and ephemeral transitions, every now and then throwing in a narrated scene that could be from the past, the future, or some alternate timeline. She keeps her audience off-balance, but it works because her characters are generally a little disoriented themselves. Domingo’s character is the only one who feels like he always knows what is going on. Bravo weaponizes that to her advantage, making his character even more intimidating, and the others more relatable.
She also includes jarring sounds of Tweets being sent out intermittently to throw her audience further off. These inclusions are made more effective by their juxtaposition with the dreamlike score by Mica Levi, which would not be out of place at a spa resort with its jangling harpsichord-like riffs.
Bravo and cinematographer Ari Wegner choose to keep things grounded on the visual side of things, filming in 16 millimeter and often shooting in as few takes as possible, except for rapid bursts of quick cuts. This choice lends the film authenticity and makes even its most improbable moments seem more possible, although it does not quite mesh with the film’s more hallucinogenic moments and makes Bravo’s goal a little blurrier. Is she telling an eccentric, sensationalized tale, or conveying the ugly truth of what happened? It is sometimes hard to tell, but it is always impossible to look away from.
