Voiceover: Zola

Zola

In October 2015, Aziah ‘Zola’ King enticed fellow Twitter users with the promise of a story that was “kind of long but full of suspense”. What followed was a further 147 tweets recounting a trip to Tampa, Florida, accompanying a new friend, and her boyfriend and roommate. Known as #TheStory, King’s tweets went viral, reaching thousands of people, including Ava DuVernay, Solange Knowles and Missy Elliot. King also participated in an exclusive interview with Rolling Stone magazine the following month. Janicza Bravo’s film brings this wild tale of ‘hoeism’ to life and adapts #TheStory into a road-trip thriller for the Internet age. The majority of the film is set over 48 hours in Florida, in which an unbelievable series of events unfold. Under the impression that they were travelling to Florida to make money dancing in a strip club, Zola is tricked by her new friend Stefani and is drawn into a world of sex work.

With each shocking, uncomfortable and unexpected turn, Zola’s story becomes even harder to believe. King has admitted to some exaggeration, but these fabrications only serve to enrich the cinematic experience. The truth

Taylour Paige

is often impossible to determine in the digital age, where everyone has a platform and can make claims without verification.

Taylour Paige’s portrayal of the eponymous Zola is almost faultless. Paige’s voice narrates the film, capturing the voice of the Zola persona that became known on Twitter. She masks her emotions behind unimpressed facial expressions and confident, quick-witted responses, and her hard exterior only begins to crack in moments of jeopardy. The four leads, Zola (Paige), Stefani (Riley Keough), Derrek (Nicholas Braun), and X (Colman Domingo), inject the film with life, animate the characters introduced in the Twitter thread, and humanise these troubled characters. You squirm in your seat the first time you hear Stefani’s blaccent, and it is often difficult to sympathise with this brash character. However, it becomes clear that Stefani is a victim of exploitation and placed in dangerous and compromising situations beyond her control.

Riley Keough and Taylour Paige

The film’s trailer may lead you to believe that Zola is a start-to-finish thrilling ride, but some of the more disturbing moments are understated. To the film’s credit, darker aspects of the story are not glamourised for dramatic purposes, and they are balanced with moments of light relief and quieter contemplation. Bravo’s sensitivity to Zola’s lived experience exposes the dangers of sex trafficking and the vulnerability of the young women in the film. Gemstones and glittery costumes do not distract the audience from the dark underbelly of exploitation. The soft fluorescent lights of the clubs and motels are exposing rather than alluring. As storyteller and narrator, Zola continues to command the narrative, even when her circumstances change for the worse. The traumatic events of this young woman’s life are told through a medium that suits her, and she reclaims agency in its embellished retelling. Una McKeown n

SONY PICTURES RELEASING INTERNATIONAL AND STAGE 6 FILMS PRESENT IN ASSOCIATION WITH A24 A KILLER FILMS, RAMONA FILMS, AND GIGI FILMS PRODUCTION A FILM BYJANICZA BRAVO TAYLOUR PAIGE RILEY KEOUGH NICHOLAS BRAUN ARI’EL STACHEL AND COLMAN DOMINGO “ZOLA” CASTING BY KIM COLEMAN, CSA MUSIC BY MICA LEVI COSTUME DESIGNERDERICA COLE WASHINGTON EDITED BY JOI MCMILLON, ACE PRODUCTION DESIGNERKATIE BYRON DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARI WEGNER EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS A’ZIAH “ZOLA” KING JENNIFER KONAWAL DAVID KUSHNER PRODUCED BY CHRISTINE VACHON DAVID HINOJOSA DAVE FRANCO VINCE JOLIVETTE GIA WALSH KARA BAKER ELIZABETH HAGGARD BASED ON THE ARTICLE “ZOLA TELLS ALL: THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE GREATEST STRIPPER SAGA EVER TWEETED” BY DAVID KUSHNER BASED ON THE TWEETS BY A’ZIAH “ZOLA” KING SCREENPLAY BY JANICZA BRAVO & JEREMY O. HARRIS DIRECTED BY JANICZA BRAVO