Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Small Axe: Lovers Rock’ on Amazon Prime, Steve McQueen’s Hypnotic Stunner of a Party Movie

Steve McQueen strikes a different tone for Lovers Rock, the second installment of Small Axe, his five-film anthology for Amazon Prime. Last week, he debuted Mangrove, a stirring dramatization of a specific historical event, the trial of the Mangrove Nine, whose protests against police violence resulted in a landmark legal battle. It was in line with his most celebrated and serious films, Shame and Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave. Comparatively, Lovers Rock — named after a reggae subgenre — is almost wholly atmospheric, a celebration of music and life set at a single party in a single night in a single apartment in 1980. Black people were not welcome in London clubs at the time, so this is what these West Indian people did.

SMALL AXE: LOVERS ROCK: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Men lug furniture into the yard. Women sing in the kitchen: Janet Kay’s lovers rock hit Silly Games. “I’ve got no time to play your silly games, silly games” they exhort passionately. They stir large pots with noodles, freshly chopped vegetables, goat curry. Two white men across the street stare down the Black men unloading gear from a truck, then pushing a P.A. into the living room, wiring up speakers, flipping through 45s for the turntable. One fellow dances in the kitchen doorway while the women sing, until his friends nudge him to get back to work.

Patty (Shaniqua Okwok) waits at a merry-go-round beneath an overpass. Martha (Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn) meets up with her. We’re not sure how old they are, but Martha’s at least young enough to have to sneak out of the house. They’re heading to the “blues party” to dance, drink a little, smoke a little, maybe meet some charming men. As they board the bus, they’re greeted with catcalls that are a shade too assertive to be charming, but they laugh it off. They arrive and a large Rastafarian man takes their coins and allows them in. The DJs spin dub, dancehall, rocksteady, lovers rock, disco (Kung Fu Fighting is prominently featured). Patty and Martha stick close together.

On the dancefloor, Franklyn (Micheal Ward of Blue Story) sidles up to them and charms Martha; she’s also pursued by Bammy (Daniel Francis-Swaby), a sharp-dressed but overly assertive lothario. Bammy moves in on a young woman in a red dress, Cynthia (Ellis George), who’s called out by the DJ: it’s her birthday. Feeling abandoned, Patty leaves the party, and when Martha pursues, hoping to catch her on the street, four white men across the street block her way and hoot at her. The burly Rasta doorman stares them off.

Marth reconnects with Franklyn and they dance, losing themselves in the sensual rhythms; he presses her against the wall, and she doesn’t resist. Dancers and DJs become revelers. The walls drip with moisture. The film revisits Silly Games and the music drops out and the women keep singing it and singing it and singing it, backed by reverent silence. The song segues into Kunta Kinte by The Revolutionaries, and the women stand back and the men respond aggressively, thrashing their limbs and whipping their hair. This is no longer just a party. It’s something more than that, something difficult to define in clear, simple, logical terms. It can only be interpreted.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Lovers Rock experience nods to Spike Lee and Dazed and Confused, but feels very much like its own thing.

Performance Worth Watching: St. Aubyn stands out for having the only semi-traditional character “arc,” but every performance here, whether a bigger or bit part, is astounding in its naturalism.

Memorable Dialogue: “You can’t wear church shoes to blues dance!” — Patty playfully chastises Martha for her Saturday-night fashion choices

Sex and Skin: Some dancefloor grinding; a nongraphic, but upsetting scene of sexual assault.

Our Take: Imagine youthful energy, sexual energy, that feeling of music as a hypnotic force. Late night moving into bleary early morning moving into daylight. The potential for troubling conflict or, of course, love. It all happens in Lovers Rock, a virtually plotless but nonetheless rich, textured and deep experience. One of McQueen’s great strengths as a storyteller is authenticity, and this is his most authentic film — and also his most intuitive and experimental. The camera thrillingly captures the intense focus of its subjects, who lose themselves in the moment and exist in an elevated state initiated and exacerbated by music, lust, smoke and drink. Entire songs pass in real time. Minutes don’t pass, they melt. No one feels tired. No one wants to stop. It’s an ecstatic state.

Lovers Rock plays out a few miniature dramas, including Martha and Patty’s rift, the results of Bammy’s sharklike demeanor, the arrival of Martha’s troubled cousin, those white men watchdogging across the street. The latter are an external threat: You stay in your place; our eyes are on you. There’s a quiet menace to these catalysts of conflict, giving the film a sense of subtle, but omnipresent tension. It seems apolitical until further consideration. Without the sense of danger, via the nature of those within and without; without the sense of a hostile external world threatening to encroach this insular gathering, a party may not allow its revelers the physical and psychological release they need. This is a hell of a film.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Lovers Rock is spellbinding, a delirium and a joy and a trip, a must-see, and one of the year’s best films.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Small Axe: Lovers Rock on Amazon Prime