ZOLA

Promising director Janicza Bravo keeps you glued to the edge of your seat for significant parts of this pretty short, but always entertaining film.

How good can a movie based on a Twitter feed be? Pretty decent if you go by Zola, which chronicles 'the greatest stripper saga ever tweeted' with humour, heart and its fair share of WTF moments.

Filmed with considerable flair by promising director Janicza Bravo the picture takes you on a road trip with a quartet of outsized characters, where you never know what lies in store after every turn, keeping you glued to the edge of your seat for significant parts of this pretty short, but always entertaining film.

Adding to the allure of Zola are the performances by Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Colman Domingo and Nicholas Braun, who create believable, flawed but fun characters that help the audience swallow the at times outrageous plot twists, that in any other film would could easily be dismissed as contrived.

Still, I hesitate to give Zola the three-star treatment, as despite the movie's entertainment value the narrative is a bit too scattershot and the final act denouement can only be described as a frustrating cop-out. Nevertheless, I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for whatever the talented cast and crew of Zola will be up to next.

release: 2021

director: Janicza Bravo

starring: Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun, Ari’el Stachel