Regina King flexes her incredible directorial skills for the first time in a feature film by bringing the stage play, One Night in Miami by Kemp Powers, to the big screen (or little screen, as it were).
One Night in Miami is a fictional take on a meeting between real life friends, Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), and Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.) as they celebrate Clay’s title victory in 1964.
When these four men are in a room alone together it sparks deep and passionate conversations about faith, civil rights, racism, and freedom. As this was a stage play, we are blessed with numerous impressive monologues from each character. This is an extremely emotionally driven piece and it certainly compares their world in 1964 to ours in 2020.
One Night in Miami is a very impressive film that is not only entertaining but extremely relevant and important. Each performance was incredible and the cast had great chemistry on screen. (In fact, from the footage I have seen of these men in real life, the acting was spot on.) You believed their friendship but you also believed their disagreements. And perhaps we can take a note from these men in the way that they support each other, yet don’t hesitate to call it out when there’s an issue and a potential for growth.
One Night in Miami is currently streaming at the Bell TIFF Cinema as part of the Toronto International Film Festival.