Since Lena Waithe won an Emmy for writing the touching, years-spanning “Thanksgiving” episode of Netflix’s Master of None, her career has been on fire: she created the Showtime series The Chi, had a supporting role in Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, and is about to appear in the third season of Westworld.

As if that weren’t enough, she also wrote Queen and Slim, her first feature film which hits theaters this November and looks like it could be an incendiary, vital piece of American cinema. Check out the latest Queen and Slim trailer below.

Queen and Slim Trailer

Daniel Kaluuya has been great in everything from Black Mirror to Get Out and Black Panther, and even though Jodie Turner-Smith is untested, it looks like she’s going to deliver a powerful performance in her first lead movie role. Any film that centers on the intersection of race and policing is walking through a minefield, but I like that this trailer makes the film seem like it’s about more than just injustice at the hands of the police: it’s about myth making, too. Count me in.

It’s also worth noting that this is the debut feature film from Melina Matsoukas, who has directed episodes of Master of None, Insecure, and FX’s upcoming Y: The Last Man series in addition to music videos for Beyonce, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lopez, and more. In 2013, she directed Run for Beyonce and Jay-Z, which made literal some of the Bonnie and Clyde comparisons that seem integral to Queen and Slim:

Here’s the official synopsis:

From trailblazing, Emmy-winning writer Lena Waithe (Netflix’s Master of None) and Melina Matsoukas, the visionary director of some of this generation’s most powerful pop-culture experiences, including Beyonce’s “Formation” and the Nike “Equality” campaign, comes Makeready’s unflinching new drama, Queen & Slim.

While on a forgettable first date together in Ohio, a black man (Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya) and a black woman (Jodie Turner-Smith, in her first starring feature-film role), are pulled over for a minor traffic infraction. The situation escalates, with sudden and tragic results, when the man kills the police officer in self-defense. Terrified and in fear for their lives, the man, a retail employee, and the woman, a criminal defense lawyer, are forced to go on the run. But the incident is captured on video and goes viral, and the couple unwittingly become a symbol of trauma, terror, grief and pain for people across the country.

As they drive, these two unlikely fugitives will discover themselves and each other in the most dire and desperate of circumstances, and will forge a deep and powerful love that will reveal their shared humanity and shape the rest of their lives.

Joining a legacy of films such as Bonnie and Clyde and Thelma & Louise, Queen & Slim is a powerful, consciousness-raising love story that confronts the staggering human toll of racism and the life-shattering price of violence.

Queen and Slim drives into theaters on November 27, 2019. You can watch previous trailers here and here.

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