Zola – A Crazy Entertaining Dark Comedy (Early Review)

For our Sundance 2020 review of Zola, click here.

Let’s just get this out of the way now, audiences will not be ready for Zola though that shouldn’t come as a surprise, being partially based on a real 148 tweet thread by A’Ziah “Zola” King. Some may wonder how tough it must be to adapt a Twitter thread into a feature film and the answer to that is surprisingly well as the film certainly plays into its ridiculous and unorthodox source material. This dark comedy definitely feels like a Twitter thread, using hilarious narration and fourth wall breaking while playing with perspective in telling its wild story that is not only hilarious but also thrilling at times and also uncomfortable. While the film may be short, clocking in at under 90 minutes, it is a blast that doesn’t wear out its welcome. That being said, the subject matter won’t be for everyone. However in the end, it will also be a film that will be hard to forget.

Zola follows a young woman named Zola (Paige), a Detroit-area waitress and exotic dancer who found herself roped into an increasingly precarious situation by another dancer named Stefani (Keough) as they, Stefani’s boyfriend Derrek (Braun) and her roommate (Colman Domingo), embarked on a road trip to Tampa to make more money dancing. Without giving too much away, what started off as a straightforward trip became anything but and Zola made no illusions of that as the she tells her story of how it all went horribly wrong. Knowing how the tale ultimately ends, the fun is learning what happened as Zola told it, occasionally interjecting with some hilarious commentary and fourth wall breaking and offering a more immersive way into the story. Just as she was, the audience is merely a passenger for the craziness that was about to ensue and that’s still putting it lightly.

For Zola, it was all about survival as she and Stefani were forced to navigate around a cast of unsavory characters as their trip suddenly became something more and something more dangerous as it was clear that they were way in over their heads whether they were smart enough to realize it or not. Luckily, she wasn’t like the others, or was she? Allegedly based on the true story based off her tweets, one can’t help to show some skepticism as the situations on screen are so ridiculous that they can’t possibly be real. As a film for the internet age, it seems that it’s only fitting. Meanwhile, Zola is a film that is brimming in style from the lighting, production design, and cinematography which further gave audiences the feeling of being a fly on the wall.

Above all else. the best part of Zola was the great script that was not only hilarious in adapting a Twitter thread into a compelling story but also did so while maintaining the right tonal balance throughout. However, the film would not have worked if not for its performances. Paige delivers a star-making performance as Zola, carrying the film with her charisma and likability, something needed to believe her as a character that didn’t belong in the world she found herself in. Keough delivers a scene-stealing performance in her own right as Stefani which was essentially the personification of blackface. Though it could rub some people the wrong way, her commitment to the outrageous character was commendable. Rounding out the cast was Braun also stealing some scenes as Derrek, the lovable doofus and Domingo giving some menace to the thin character the was Stefani’s roommate (who is credited as ‘X’).

At the end of the day, Zola is definitely an experience that won’t be for everyone but is certainly one that will be hard to forget.

still courtesy of A24

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.