Queen and Slim

What is it?

Queen and Slim is a crime drama and unlikely romance. After an unexceptional first date a young black couple are pulled over by a racist white cop. When the encounter goes badly wrong, Slim ends up shooting the cop and the two almost-strangers go on the run, travelling cross-country in an attempt to keep their freedom.

What to expect

Queen and Slim is a nuanced exploration of the effect of police brutality in the wake of the “black lives matter” movement. Both a love story and a road movie, it blends genre and characterisation to create a narrative which manages to voice anger at injustice without being didactic.

While the film’s portrayal of police brutality and gun violence is well-contextualised and of low extent, children are still likely to be shocked by it. The moral ambiguity of the crime presented requires some maturity to appreciate. Children are also unlikely to have the maturity to process the relatively frank sex scene and associated nudity. Furthermore, the extent of offensive language is likely to inure younger viewers to such language, increasing the likelihood of imitation, to the detriment of their socialisation.