Book to Big Screen!: If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

Soon to be a major motion picture from Annapurna Pictures (Detroit), directed by Barry Jenkins (Academy Award Best Picture Moonlight) and starring Kiki Layne as Tish, Stephan James (Shots Fired) as Fonny, Regina King, Pedro Pascal, Dave Franco, and Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta). In theaters December 14th.

Watch the trailer!

From one of our greatest writers, James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk is a profoundly moving novel about love in the face of injustice that is as socially resonant today as it was when it was first published. Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin’s story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned.

Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions—affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.

Official movie poster: