Zola is the kind of movie that feels just right for 2020. Born out of a 2015 viral Twitter thread that began, “You wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out? It’s kind of long but full of suspense,” it’s a movie as chaotic as the moment we’re living through. After premiering at Sundance earlier this year, the first sneak peek of Zola is here—and it delivers on its wild premise.
Directed by Janicza Bravo (Lemon), who co-wrote the script with playwright Jeremy O. Harris (Slave Play), the movie tells a stranger-than-fiction tale that takes place over 48 hours in Tampa. A’ziah “Zola” King (@_zolarmoon on Twitter) introduced the world to her story via a 148-tweet saga (which you can read here). In it, Zola recounts how she and a fellow stripper named Jessica struck up a friendship and planned a weekend trip to the Sunshine State to make money dancing. But their friendship and getaway are quickly derailed by surprise guests, prostitution, a suicide attempt, and an arrest for murder.
Harris tweeted the first glimpse at Zola Thursday, jokingly referencing Christopher Nolan’s (upcoming, we think?) movie Tenet.
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The thread’s initial release grabbed the attention of several high-profile Hollywood players, including director Ava DuVernay. “In India reading #Zola. Drama, humor, action, suspense, character development. She can write!” the Oscar-nominated filmmaker tweeted. King revealed more about her tale in a profile with Rolling Stone‘s David Kushner, who also receives a story credit on the film.
Taylour Paige (White Boy Rick) stars as Zola, while Riley Keough (The Girlfriend Experience) plays Stefani, a character renamed from Jessica, per Variety. Nicholas Braun (Succession‘s Cousin Greg) takes on the role of Stefani’s emotionally distraught boyfriend Derrek (Garrett in the Twitter thread), while Colman Domingo plays the secretive X (Z in the thread).
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While some could deem a Twitter thread about Floridian shenanigans a strange choice for a film, Harris saw the cinematic potential from the beginning. “I think that something that’s really interesting about what A’ziah tweeted was that, everyone who read that Twitter thread had their own movie that they made in their head,” he told IndieWire. “Black Twitter said it was ‘The Thotyssey.’ And that compared A’ziah to Homer. Like, to our earliest epic poem. And so, I was like, I wanna read it like it’s Homer or Toni Morrison or Stephen King, even, you know?”
Bravo described the movie to Variety as “where (Cardi B’s) ‘Bodak Yellow’ and (David Lynch’s) Blue Velvet meet.” No official release is given at the end of Zola‘s first trailer. But with a description like that, here’s hoping it arrives sooner rather than later.
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