Just exited a Zola screening (8:50 pm start) at the Landmark. Stripper saga + road + relationship movie + oddball humor here and there and finessed with absolute assurance…FIRST RATE..all hail director Janicza Bravo.

Pic is an immediate top-tenner. So much more gripping and fascinating than I expected. The focus was constantly “on” and I was fully in the grip — knew it was aces almost immediately. Taylour Paige and Riley Kehoe own this fucking movie. And that tall skinny 20something guy (Nicholas Braun) plus the 50ish pimp (Colman Domingo) + costars Ari’el Stachel, Jason Mitchell, Nasir Rahim, Sophie Hal…all great.

Taut and well honed and short even…86 minutes! No moralizing, no crude impact slams, almost none of the usual cliches, never touches (much less explores) the wallowing realm. An almost perfect film for what is, what it aims at. I’m delighted that it turned out this well. (posted from iPhone)

Friendo: “It sounds like a very 2021 movie…one that no one would ever dare criticize. But yet it does. It has some dissenters on RT:m. Not many, but some.”