IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK | FAMILY MOVIE REVIEW INFORMATION FOR PARENTS AND KIDS

"IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK"
(2018) (Kiki Layne, Stephan James) (R)

QUICK TAKE:: Drama: A young, unmarried couple must contend with her being pregnant while he's in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

PLOT:

Clementine "Tish" Rivers (KIKI LAYNE) and Alonzo "Fonny" Hunt (STEPHAN JAMES) have known each other since they were young kids, but they're now unmarried lovers. Complicating matters is that she's now pregnant while he's in prison for a crime he didn't commit. And that's of raping Victoria Rogers (EMILY RIOS), who's been convinced by white racist Officer Bell (ED SKREIN) that Fonny is the perpetrator despite him having been hanging out with his friend, Daniel Carty (BRIAN TYREE HENRY), at the time of the violent crime.

Tish's parents, Sharon (REGINA KING) and Joseph (COLMAN DOMINGO), and sister, Ernestine (TEYONAH PARRIS), are excited by the news but concerned about Fonny being imprisoned. That sentiment is shared by his father, Frank (MICHAEL BEACH), but not his highly religious mother, Alice (AUNJANUE ELLIS), or sisters, Adrienne (EBONY OBSIDIAN) and Sheila (DOMINIQUE THORNE).

As the story goes back and forth through time from the present back to when Tish and Fonny became an item, she and her family try to do what they can to prove Fonny's innocence and get him out of prison.

WILL KIDS WANT TO SEE IT?: Teens might be drawn to the love story and/or that of a young black man being caught up in the criminal justice system.

WHY THE MPAA RATED IT: R: For language and some sexual content.

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