One Night in Miami...
In
an audacious conceit, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown
banter and squabble in Regina King’s highly entertaining and pertinent
drama.
Race to the top: Sam Cooke, Jim Brown, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali
One night in
Miami four men sit in a hotel room and talk up a storm. Adapted by Kemp Powers
from his own 2013 play, this would make for pretty stodgy cinema were it not
for the calibre of the characters. For starters, we have Muhammad Ali – on the very
night he became world champ: 25 February 1964. There’s also Jim Brown, “the best
footballer in the world.” And Sam Cooke, the ‘King of Soul music.’ And the
civil rights leader Malcolm X.
In 1985,
Nicolas Roeg directed a film called Insignificance
– based on the play by Terry Johnson – set over one night in a New York hotel
room and featuring four iconic figures. Likewise a fictitious imagining, the
characters here were all white: Joe DiMaggio, Albert Einstein, Joseph McCarthy and
Marilyn Monroe. A conceit that worked a treat on stage (at the Royal Court), Roeg’s
film version felt artificial and gimmicky. Not so One Night in Miami…, which marks the directorial debut of the Oscar-winning
actress Regina King.
As a
performer herself, King has elevated the drama through the skills of four
remarkable actors, actors who are not only miraculously transformed into their
famous characters but breathe real life into the recognisable mannerisms. While
it’s the London-born Kingsley Ben-Adir who has been attracting the most Oscar
heat for his turn as Malcolm X, history may be against him. Another English
actor, David Oyelowo, was passed over for his uncanny conversion into Martin Luther
King in Selma, and only last year the
London-born Cynthia Erivo was nominated for playing the cherished African-American
abolitionist Harriet Tubman. But this
film is an ensemble piece and all four actors exhibit an extraordinary talent for
nailing their personalities. Leslie Odom Jr, who played the abolitionist
William Still in Harriet and Aaron
Burr in the film and stage versions of Hamilton,
effortlessly conjures up a snappy, savvy Sam Cooke – and sings in character, to
boot. Aldis Hodge (Straight Outta
Compton, Clemency) lends enormous heft, charisma and dignity to Jim Brown
and has perhaps the most memorable scene – before the opening title – which he
shares with Beau Bridges. As Ali, here still known by his pre-Muslin moniker of
Cassius Clay, Eli Goree is tremendous fun and perfects the boxer’s vocal
cadence (although he’s actually more muscular than Ali ever was). Which leaves
Ben-Adir as Malcolm X, the quartet’s moral conscience and a righteous killjoy
of the evening’s high jinks. Yet it is he who encapsulates the story’s moral timbre,
driving home the consequence of what it means to be a black icon. Ben-Adir
would make a great Barack Obama.
The actors
certainly do justice to Kemp Powers’ perceptive and colourful dialogue, even if some of it feels
anachronistic and even banal. But unlike Ma
Rainey's Black Bottom, another recent stage adaptation, One Night in Harlem… is given a more
limber, cinematic feel, helped by flashbacks and breaks from the claustrophobia
of the hotel room. And it’s a terrific play. Following the Caucasian glut of
last year’s Oscar contenders, this season we are treated to an embarrassment of
African-American riches.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis
Hodge, Leslie Odom Jr, Joaquina Kalukango, Nicolette Robinson, Michael
Imperioli, Lawrence Gilliard Jr, Christian Magby, Jeremy Pope, Christopher
Gorham, Beau Bridges, Lance Reddick, Emily Bridges.
Dir Regina King, Pro Jess Wu Calder, Keith Calder and Jody Klein, Screenplay Kemp Powers, from his play of
the same name, Ph Tami Reiker, Pro Des Barry Robison, Ed Tariq Anwar, Music Terence Blanchard, Costumes
Francine Jamison-Tanchuck, Dialect coach
Tré Cotten.
Snoot Entertainment/ABKCO-Artificial Eye.
114 mins. USA. 2020. Rel: 26 December 2020. Available on Amazon Prime. Cert. 15.