'Queen & Slim' Trailer: Daniel Kaluuya And Jodie Turner-Smith Get Their Own 'Bonnie & Clyde'

Ready Player One co-star Lena Waithe made a splash a couple years ago as the first black woman to win an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for Aziz Ansari's Netflix series Master of None. Now she's making her feature writing debut with Queen and Slim, a new drama that turns Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya and newcomer Jodie Turner-Smith (Nightflyers) into the black Bonnie & Clyde. But there's much more to this movie than two criminals on the run. Watch the Queen and Slim trailer below to see what we're talking about.

Queen and Slim Trailer

The press release for Queen and Slim touts the film as a "powerful, consciousness-raising love story that confronts the staggering human toll of racism and the life-shattering price of violence." This isn't about two people who choose to partake in a life of crime just for the thrill of it. These are two people whose lives are irreversibly changed when a police stop goes terribly wrong. While the trailer appears to make it look like Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) is completely to blame, there might be more than meets the eye in the film itself, especially if you read the full synopsis:

While on a forgettable first date together in Ohio, a black man (Get Out's Daniel Kaluuya) and a black woman (Jodie Turner-Smith, in her first starring feature-film role), are pulled over for a minor traffic infraction. The situation escalates, with sudden and tragic results, when the man kills the police officer in self-defense. Terrified and in fear for their lives, the man, a retail employee, and the woman, a criminal defense lawyer, are forced to go on the run. But the incident is captured on video and goes viral, and the couple unwittingly become a symbol of trauma, terror, grief and pain for people across the country.

As they drive, these two unlikely fugitives will discover themselves and each other in the most dire and desperate of circumstances, and will forge a deep and powerful love that will reveal their shared humanity and shape the rest of their lives.

Queen and Slim is bound to be divisive as it approaches the controversial matter of police violence and racism among law enforcement, but these are exactly the kind of things that films can dramatize to bring more attention to them. And with black filmmakers behind the camera and the script, we should most certainly be paying attention.

The film is based on an original ideal by author James Frey (A Million Little Pieces, Katerina) and it marks the directorial debut of Melina Matsoukas, an executive producer on Issa Rae's critically acclaimed HBO comedy series Insecure and director of Beyoncé's famous "Formation" music video.

Queen and Slim hits theaters on November 27, 2019.