Review: 'Zola' successfully brings a crazy Twitter stripper saga to clever big-screen life
“Zola” is obviously a cautionary tale to never go on a road trip with crazy people you don’t know. But stripping away the wild hijinks reveals a sneakily effective exploration of storytelling and point of view.
Writer/director Janicza Bravo’s comedic thriller (★★★ out of four; rated R; in theaters now) adapts the stranger-than-fiction Twitter thread of A’Ziah King that went viral in 2015 with its tale of a couple of fast friends who went to Florida for 48 hours and fell out in epic fashion. It’s a clever, stylish and well-acted ride – with tweet sounds and notification bells acting as a sonic reminder of its social-media origins – that tackles rather serious themes including toxic relationships and sex trafficking with a surprising amount of humor.
Taylour Paige, a stellar newcomer who appeared in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” plays the title role, and is the audience’s way into this bizarre, over-the-top journey of hedonism.
'The Green Knight,' 'Zola' and more: 10 indie films you absolutely must watch this summer
Detroit waitress Zola randomly meets a customer named Stefani (Riley Keough), who compliments her breasts and asks whether she “dances,” unaware that Zola’s got a stripper pole in her apartment. Stefani mentions she knows a place in Florida where they can make thousands in cash, and the two new pals head for Tampa with Stefani’s jealous idiot boyfriend, Derrek (Nicholas Braun); and roommate X (Colman Domingo).
When she finds out that X is actually Stefani’s pimp and Zola’s purpose on this trip isn’t just to dance, Zola quickly realizes she’s in way over her head. But she's pretty much the smartest person in the movie, and makes the best of a horrendous situation for her and Stefani, even though her new BFF's an untrustworthy train wreck. A bunch of Tampa gangsters and a couple of hostage situations add to the overall mayhem.
Paige's innate charm and gift for great side-eye help invest the viewer in the madness that surrounds Zola, while Keough matches her magnetism as the film's unpredictable agent of chaos. With the way she appropriates Black slang and culture, Stefani’s immediately grating. But Keough slyly plays her as someone you never can get a handle on, even as Bravo seems to give a window into her inner soul in certain scenes. Braun, who plays hopelessly naïve Cousin Greg on HBO’s “Succession,” brings that same vibe to Derrek, who’s also not the greatest at picking new buddies (or girlfriends, for that matter) and Domingo gives X – the biggest wild card of them all – a watchably sinister side.
The real story behind 'Zola': How a jaw-dropping Twitter thread turned into an even crazier film
Amid the violence, absurdity and a parade of full-frontal male nudity, Bravo carves out a message of female empowerment, championing ingenuity as well as sexuality, and celebrates its modern internet-era setting. Zola and Stefani converse in text-speak, while the look and sounds of a smartphone screen spruce up the narrative throughout the film.
The original thread delivered on its promise of a story that was “kind of long but full of suspense.” The movie comes through on the latter, but with an 87-minute running time, the lean-and-mean “Zola” misses out on some narrative opportunities. Most films veer too long, yet Bravo’s project begs for more, fleetingly tugging on threads like police brutality and the travails of sex work. One sequence suddenly twists everything from Zola’s perspective to another character's that’s cool but short-lived.
Oftentimes, the original book is better than its movie version. And while King’s tweetstorm is an infamous Homeric odyssey in the world of 280 characters, “Zola” is a solid spin, vividly capturing a stripper saga that would have been harrowing to live through, but is fun to sit back and witness.