Zola

Zola

A waitress agrees to accompany an exotic dancer, her put-upon boyfriend, and her mysterious and domineering roommate on a road trip to Florida to seek their fortune at a high-end strip club.

  • Released: 2021-06-30
  • Runtime: 86 minutes
  • Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
  • Stars: Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Colman Domingo, Nicholas Braun, Ari'el Stachel, Nelcie Souffrant, Nasir Rahim, Jason Mitchell, Ts Madison, Latasha Glenn, Kalesha Johnson, Natalie Mimms, Shadae Mitchell, Oleika Redd, Tommy Foxhill, Ben Bladon, Tony DeMil, Ernest Emmanuel Peeples, Joseph Sanders, Brett Chesebro, Carl Collanus, Jay Dersahagian, Rusty Dumhoff, Mark Fiedler, Alex Flash, Matt Harding, Richard Lariviere, Bob Lawton, Ernest Lee Wilson, Jr., Josh Locy, Pedro Armando Medina, Thomas Nash, Bill Pierce, Michael Worden, Kyle Williams, Andrew Romano, Sophie Hall, Angelo Diaz, Rico Paris, Michael Aceveda, Anibal Echevarria Bonet, Max Guevara, Harold Hernandez, David Rodriguez, Bernard Lyght, Michael Opal, Eric Salas, Doug Walker, Jarquale Stewart, Drew Rin Varick, Megan Hayes
  • Director: Janicza Bravo
 Comments
  • nrstim - 6 May 2024
    Positively awful.
    Astonishingly vapid and banal filmmaking. Of all the awful elements of this film, the soundtrack may be the worst, truly to the point of being offensive. It sounds like it was written by Peter Bretter from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" while he was in middle school. Nothing here resembles a reasonable narrative. I can't believe someone thought this was worth making a movie about, and I can't comprehend that someone saw and edited this movie with a straight face. It's completely ridiculous. Every aspect is so completely terrible, it is difficult to consider this garbage as an actual film worthy of reviewing at all. Don't waste your time.
  • burlesonjesse5 - 20 January 2023
    VIEWS ON FILM review of Zola
    A waitress from Detroit finds a new friend, goes to Tampa, thinks she's doing some stripping, and ends up being involved in a small prostitution ring. That's the rub of 2020's Zola, a disjointed vehicle that's aimlessness comes from the fact it's based on a Twitter thread. Wha? You heard me, a Twitter thread. Man reading those things can be a totally head-scratching experience.

    So yeah, Zola kind of reminded me of Oscar winner Moonlight. It's in the look and well, the overall landscape (Florida, USA). That's where the comparisons end because "reminded" can be a darn, broad term these days. I mean Zola had a chance to be good but its director (Janicza Bravo) decided rather to be faithful and stay on script. Why? To honor this almighty social media post? I'm not buying it.

    Zola is not a movie mind you but a series of scenes posing as a movie. Bravo commits to every shot but what's the point if every one of them is in the form of some overused cinematic gimmick or technique. When a tense moment arises or a stirring nugget gets established, Zola deflects. Its aspect of impetus gets lost on the viewer. A character constantly talking into the camera, the freezing of a frame, some random narration, a dream sequence. In the end it all appears arbitrary when it comes to Zola. For reals.

    Like I said in the last paragraph, Janicza Bravo commits. Guess what, so do her troupers (Taylor Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun) and um, maybe they commit a little too much. In Zola, it all appears like some sort of strange method acting where everyone portrays vexing, urban stereotypes. I mean how can you recommend a flick when the whole cast is channeling their inner B-Rad G? I couldn't and won't.