If Beale Street Could Talk: Love Story with Backdrop of Racism

This is Director Barry Jenkins' follow-up film to the AA winning "Moonlight." (Click Here for my review of "Moonlight.")  I didn't think "Moonlight" deserved the AA, and I didn't like this film nearly as much as the critics did.  The movie is based on the 1974 novel of the same name by James Baldwin, and is apparently quite faithful to it.  "Beale Street" is in Memphis, but serves as a metaphor for the difficult lives of Blacks in the 1970's. Tish (Kiki Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James) have been extremely close childhood friends.  When they become young adults, they fall in love and nature takes its course.  The film starts with Fonny, accompanied by Tish, going to jail for a crime he didn't commit.  (I can't reveal more about the plot without spoiling it.)  In flashbacks, their love story is told, including the close involvement of the two families.  (Tish's mother Sharon, played by Regina King, just won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama in a Supporting Role.)  Overall, the film focuses on the two primary themes of racism and injustice. It's a good film, but I found it slow at times.  The Director of Photography, probably acting under Jenkins' direction, takes numerous close-ups of the leads, most of the time with them looking directly into the camera, which I found disconcerting and excessive.  This, along with the somber score, gave me the impression that the movie was taking itself way too seriously.  It won't be in my Top 10 for 2018. 'If Beale Street Could Talk,' it would say that "the book is better than the film."