The history of America is filled with great stories. Paul Revere’s midnight ride. The tales of Huckleberry Finn. The gunfight at the OK Corral. The John F. Kennedy Assassination. The Biggie/Tupac feud. Each new generation adds to the tapestry of Americana, providing a living breathing picture of the United States. Which should make you wonder, “What is this generation’s addition?” I don’t think I had a story that starts with “Y’all Wanna Hear A Story About Why Me & This Bitch Here Fell Out?!” at the top of the list, but Zola taps into so many specific American traits I’m pretty certain long after we leave this Earth some high schooler is going to be reading historical stories about Aziah “Zola” King’s legendary tale and how it defined the Twitter generation.
Told with Tweet voiceover, Zola (Taylour Paige) is a waitress/stripper enjoying life in Detroit with her boyfriend. One night at the restaurant, a white girl, Stefani (Riley Keough), and Zola bond over a shared love of dancing, making a bunch of money at the strip club that night. Almost immediately, Stefani asks Zola to go on a “ho trip” to Tampa, stripping for crazy money. Zola loves the idea, and agrees to go, joining Stefani, Stefani’s boyfriend Derek (Nicholas Braun), and X (Colman Domingo), Stefani’s roommate. 148 Tweets later, and Zola’s tale makes her a true American storyteller, giving us a legendary, spectacular trip that leads to a totally entertaining movie.
No writer would ever craft a tale as captivating as Zola’s crazy 48 hour journey. Inadvertently, she stumbled upon the perfect recipe for entertainment. Movie road trips: totally fun! With crazy characters? Oh yeah, and they get crazier as the story goes along. Sex and violence front and center? Um, this story is about stripping and sex work in seedy ways, so check! Are power and money involved? Pimps facture heavily into the story, so, yeah. Plot twists? No spoilers, but yeah, and some really good ones too. All inside of a world we’ve never seen before? I can say, other than maybe Magic Mike, there’s not a lot stories about the prostitution game in the Tampa area. In 90 minutes, we dive balls deep into Zola’s story, and become dumbfounded at the amount of things that happen in a 48 hour window are as captivating as any crime caper/heist thriller out there. In part because at times the characters take their turns out dumbing each other with overreactions, hilarious lack of understanding at the economics of their crimes, and sweet dumb naivete hoping for love to shine through. It’s that wonderful movie road trip where the audience will never want the trip to end because of how fun it was to witness.
But the specific reason this movie is special is because of Zola’s perspective. We’re used to either a voiceless omniscient camera narrator or a news reporter type voice talking somewhat professionally. From Zola’s very first line, we’re inserted into Aziah King’s personality, talking in that “Hey gurrrrrllll, what you doin?” speech that we experience day to day but never see on film. Though initially disorienting, that choice pays dividends over time, because it gives the movie an unexpected, humorous delivery that gives the movie the perfect tone to match the story it wants to tell. Matching that tone is Taylour Paige’s performance as our narrator, the reaction queen of the movie giving it steady ground while chaos reigns around her. Riley Keough is excellent playing the horrifying walking contradiction Stefani. Keough finds that perfect lane to play this doofus con artist: full of unearned bravado, totally charming, but the minute you dig you see how little this person knows or gives a crap about anything other than herself. Equally awesome is Colman Domingo as X. Domingo also nails the character, making him the divine mixture of stupid and scary that Zola treads lightly but never fully is scared by the game he’s trying to pull; the scene where he panics and leaves a hotel I almost cried laughing. Nicholas Braun and Jason Mitchell are also fun with their little modern Huck/Jim adventure in Tampa’s seedy hotel scene, giving a nice little respite from some of the heavier parts of the Zola/Stefani tales.
By the time we’re throwing guns into Tampa Bay heading back to Detroit, we’re as exhausted and dumbfounded as Zola was at the end of that 48 hour wild ride. The audience isn’t dumbfounded though; the audience is elated! Because we got to get a little glimpse into the life of a person we don’t see often; a person who seems fun, interesting, and game for almost anything, and can keep her cool even when all this nonsense gets thrust upon her. Props to A24 for seeing the value in Zola’s 148 Tweet tale, and giving it the visual platform it so rightfully deserved. I kinda now hope this movie wins Best Picture at the Oscars, just so Zola can give the speech at the podium. There’s no way that speech would be anything other than legendary.