Singin' the blues: Miles Caton as Sammie in Sinners. Photo © Warner Bros. Pictures
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind and God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but if you are tempted, he will provide a way of escape so that you can endure.” — 1 Corinthians 10:13
There’s one important fact about Sinners, the fifth film directed by Ryan Coogler, that’s crucial to understanding it but isn’t clear from its marketing and promotion. Sinners is not a vampire movie; it’s a musical that has vampires in it. This distinction is important because music is what the film is really about. Vampires are just one of the tools Coogler uses to make his point.
It’s not hard to understand why Coogler and Warner Bros. Pictures might have been hesitant to make that clear upfront. Because when people hear the word “musical” they typically don’t picture a period piece set in 1930s Mississippi that doesn’t shy away from the horrors of being black in the deep south of America’s Jim Crow era. This is less like La La Land and more like Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
I totally recognise the argument that if the imperative is to get butts on seats, the chances of success are higher if you can make people think they’re going to get an action horror film and not a dramatic musical. But, because I walked into the theatre expecting to see Blade in Clarksdale, I left my first viewing with complaints about pacing. Those misgivings evaporated once I watched the film a second time and realised I was missing the point.
Sinners is not about vampires. Yes, it does have its share of horrific thrills and gory action sequences, but the film is really about the spiritual and transcendent power of music. There are musical numbers running almost throughout its narrative and one pivotal yet divisive sequence that comes nearly an hour into the film drives this point home. The vampires in Coogler’s film represent the worldly temptations that often emerge to lead an artist with God-given talent astray.
Much of the discourse around Sinners will rightly be around Michael B. Jordan’s career breakthrough performance as twin brothers Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack” Moore. But the real star of the film is Miles Caton who portrays Sammie, a preacher’s son bestowed with “the gift of making music so true that it can pierce the veil between life and death, conjuring spirits from the past and the future”.
Caton deserves all the credit in the world for being able to deliver a memorable lead performance, in what is his first role of any kind, while being surrounded by a talented ensemble of powerhouse actors and actresses. The remarkable cast also includes Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo, Jayme Lawson and Omar Benson Miller.
The plotline is a backdrop for Sammie’s story. Smoke and Stack return to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi, from Chicago, Illinois, in 1932, seven years after leaving to seek their fortune. Armed with a boatload of cash, the twins buy an old mill and open their own night club, called a jukejoint in this era, and rally their friends and family to come and help make it a success.
Sammie is one of these people. He’s Smoke and Stack’s little cousin and his mesmerising blues singing and guitar playing will be the centrepiece of the club’s opening night but it’s also going to be the siren call for spirits both good and evil.
One thing I have to respect about Coogler is that he is truly a man who appreciates different cultures and approaches them with a sincere curiosity. He manages to weave Irish music into Sinners through the character of Remmick, a vampire of Irish origin, memorably portrayed by Jack O’Connell. It’s reminiscent of how Coogler included Spanish and Yucatec Mayan culture in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. But, make no mistake, the heart and soul of Sinners is blues music.
Coogler has said in interviews that Sinners is the most personal film he has ever made and functions partly as a tribute to his late uncle James, a blues aficionado, who was born and raised in Mississippi and later relocated to Oakland. He’s also referenced two books that helped inform his understanding of blues music and its history while making the film: Blues People: Negro Music in White America by Leroi Jones also known as Amiri Baraka and Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta by Robert Palmer.
For Coogler, a director best known for the box office juggernaut Black Panther, which grossed over $1.3 billion, Sinners is his first original film not based on a true story or adapted from existing intellectual property. In a film environment littered with endless sequels and adaptations, the success of Sinners would be a win for moviegoers who are sick and tired of being repeatedly fed the same stories. And with an opening Easter weekend gross of $61 million, it looks like Sinners may just turn out to be the joyous celebration of music and cinema that forces Hollywood to realise that moviegoers are starving for more original storytelling.