The titular character in Zola (Taylour Paige, Ma’s girlfriend in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) is a waitress in a Hooters-like joint in Detroit and an occasional pole-dancer. Zola accepts an invitation from Stefani (Riley Keough, Capable in Mad Max: Fury Road) for a weekend roadtrip to Tampa to make some quick cash stripping. Stefani is the most recent of acquaintances, and Zola doesn’t realize until it’s too late that the Tampa weekend is going to be a harrowing misadventure.
Off they go with Stefani’s boyfriend (Nicholas Braun) and Stefani’s mysterious “friend” (Colman Domingo). It is revealed that Stefani is a basket of bad choices, dangerous entanglements and treacherous mendacity. The trashy fun quickly descends into the appalling, the disgusting and the terrifying.
Zola has widely been called a comedy. It is filled with very funny moments, but it is about dysfunction and exploitation, and it’s not a relaxing watch.
Zola is the first feature for director Janicza Bravo, and it is a highly original film:
- Bravo co-wrote the screenplay “based on the Tweets by A’Ziah King”, a series of 148 Tweets that recounted an actual occurrence in real time.
- Zola is a film by a BIPOC female director on sexual exploitation.
- There is no female nudity, but there is male nudity.
- Riley Keough, who is white, plays Stefani with a blaccent and in what Taylour Paige calls “blackface” after discussing cultural appropriation with Bravo.
Stefani’s boyfriend (Nicholas Braun) is astonishingly dumb, so much so that he asks, “do you think I’m stupid?”. There are varieties of melons that are smarter than this guy. Braun throws himself into this character without any hint of irony, which makes him him even funnier.
Other comic highlights:
- A brief rehash of the story from Stefani’s outrageously deceitful point of view.
- An enthusiastic pre-dance group prayer by the strippers.
- Ben Bladon, a character actor who usually plays zombies, makes the most of his turn as a strip club patron who utters what he thinks is a complement.
Riley Keough is the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, and I keep mixing her up with Jenny Lewis’ old band Rilo Kiley.
They say that acting is reacting, and Taylour Paige is excellent as our prism for the story. Keough has the showier part, and Paige is usually observing Stefani’s antics with some combination of annoyance, disgust, and increasing desperation. Paige is effective as Zola’s anchor.
Zola is now in theaters. Just make sure you don’t think that Zola is a naughty, light comedy.