What I Didn’t Expect from Sinners

By Kanika Phillip

Sinners, where do I begin! There were so many messages and themes to unpack. But what I did not expect was to be hit with a sudden wave of sadness. To be alive during the Jim Crow and Civil Rights era surely must have been something.

First off, the evolution of music—wow! Seeing how folk and blues developed into modern-day rock and roll was so powerful. I loved the contrast between the old-fashioned acoustic guitars and the electric ones that produce a completely different sound. The scene in Club Juke with people dancing in 1932 Mississippi to blues really stood out to me, alongside the flashing forward to modern-day people from different cultures dancing. It was particularly beautiful to see the nod to the Chinese tradition of face painting from the Hualian Festival, alongside Black women twerking, and a Black woman performing contemporary dance.

What I loved the most about this scene was that it wasn’t entirely fantasy! Some people who were around back then are still alive today and would have lived to see music evolve into what it is now. And I love that!

At the same time, there was such a powerful contrast between music’s joy and the sadness it held, seen through Sammie’s relationship with his preacher father and the church’s rejection of any music outside Church music. That line—“Put the guitar down”—choked me. But seeing Sammie grip the broken piece of his guitar at the end… that moved me. Even now, in some churches, like my old Pentecostal one, pastors label what they do not understand as “devilish.” But Sammie’s music was not about lust or rebellion, it was about joy and comfort.

That moves me onto the theme of love. Love was everywhere—Stack telling Annie he missed and loved her, Smoke admitting his feelings to Mary but pushing her away to protect her. Even Sammie’s father, harsh as he was, seemed to act from love, believing the church was the only path to safety for his son. Misguided? Yes. But love? Still, yes.

Loss was another theme that cut deep. Annie and Stack suffering the loss of their baby. And Annie’s death, when Stack had to stab her to set her soul free, so she could be with their child. It was such a touching moment when he finally got to be with Annie and their baby, after taking down the last Klan member, very powerful! Oh yeah, let’s talk about that. The Klan. It makes me angryyyy! I can’t believe they still exist today. In the film they sent Remmick to kill the “niggers”. 

Something that struck me was that Irish folk music was used in the film almost like a haunting lure by Rimmeck, as a way to reel Black people into danger. Something I did not know was that folk music has a history of being intertwined with racist narratives and practices. This includes blackface and the appropriation of Black musical traditions, as well as the exclusion of Black people within the Irish folk scene. Mad, mad, mad!

Temptation was a recurring theme too, especially around money. Cornbread fassed up himself and left the cornfields to take another job for some quick cash. And look what happened. Why are we as people soooo greedy? Never truly satisfied with what we have. Sometimes we go searching for things we don't need, when we should learn to be content with what we have.

Also, I never really considered the experience of Black people who were white passing or mixed race, from the perspective of lost love. It must have been so hard for Mary and Smoke. They couldn't really be together because she was regarded as a White woman and he was a dark-skinned Black man. But seeing them together in the end credits with Sammie Moore—now vampires in the modern world—was strangely beautiful. Annie had said that vampires steal the soul of the people they kill… yet Mary and Smoke still shared love. They got their chance.

(Side note: Hailee Steinfeld’s real grandfather was half Filipino and half African-American. That must have made this role even more surreal for her.)

I want to also shout out the Native American characters, too. There was a moment when they tried to warn the white woman before Remmick bit her. It was such a selfless act of protection and knowledge-sharing, completely dismissed. That moment stayed with me. Native American communities have such a long history of survival and resistance. And the way they are still mistreated and misunderstood today is a story for another day in itself.

For Black people in that era, something was always looming. Vampires. Slavery. White people loving your music but hating your skin. Whatever it was, it was always suffocating. There was nowhere to just be free. Black people were turning to different things as a form of escapism, whether it was money, the church, etc. Anything to just escape the realities of life.

On my way home from the cinema, I was listening to Lenny Kravitz’s Fly Away, and the words felt fitting:

 “I wanna get away, I wanna fly away.”

It made me wonder about the people of that time—the ones whose stories Sinners drew from. I really hope that those who had the chance managed to fly away, even if only in spirit. I hope they found a moment of peace somewhere, somehow.

Sinners was not incredible just because it was a horror, or action, or sci-fi film. It was incredible because it told the stories of Black American people in the most bad-arse, heartbreaking, funny, and beautiful way.