Nana Mensah has been paying her dues in small roles in TV shows and independent films for 13 years now. She has risen to comparative prominence in recent years playing characters like Dr. Camila Candelario in “New Amsterdam,” Amara Josephine Achola in “13 Reasons Why” and a kindergarten teacher in Judd Apatow’s excellent The King of Staten Island. After taking such a long time to build a profile for herself, a chance to tell stories her own way has therefore been well-earned. Queen of Glory has had a successful run at festivals including Tribeca, London, Milwaukee and Cheltenham, and could well turn out to be a summer sleeper indie hit. The film is an ostensibly low-budget, understated but subtly touching comedy drama about the obstacles life puts in our way and the positives they can sometimes unexpectedly generate.
The film centers on Sarah Obeng (Mensah), a Ghanaian American woman in her thirties living close to her mother in the Bronx. She is planning to drop out of her doctoral studies at Columbia University and move to Ohio with the charming but noncommittal Lyle (Adam Leon), a married professor with whom she has been having an affair. However, her mother dies suddenly and unexpectedly, leaving her with the usual upsetting administration that such an occurrence entails. An even more unexpected turn of events transpires when Sarah learns that her mother has bequeathed her Christian bookshop, King of Glory, to her. This throws Sarah’s plans into disarray, discombobulating her. However, she forges surprisingly strong friendships with Pitt (Meeko Gattuso from “Euphoria”), a heavily tattooed Hispanic ex-convict who works at the bookshop, and the family of Kaitlyn (Madeline Weinstein from “Mare of Easttown”), a heavily pregnant Russian American woman whose house adjoins Sarah’s late mother’s townhouse.
Queen of Glory offers an enjoyable story with a considerable focus on the experiences of present-day, first-generation, young African Americans, a highly underrepresented grouping of people within US cinema. Mensah does an equally good job of acting, writing and directing. Her screenplay gives some very funny dialogue to Kaitlyn at the wake (Kaitlyn: “Well, this looks like a family affair.” Sarah: “No, everyone’s just Black.”) and to the executor of Sarah’s mother’s will, Raja Singh (Alok Tewari), when he learns of Sarah’s plans to move to Ohio (Singh: “Why Ohio?” Sarah: “Ohio’s great. Have you been?” Singh: “Yes. Have you?”).
In terms of style, the film feels akin to 1990s American indie hits like Richard Linklater’s Slacker, Paul Schrader’s Light Sleeper and Steve Buscemi’s Trees Lounge. On the technical side of things, cinematographer Cybel Martin captures the warmth and hominess of Sarah’s family home well through a predominance of earth colors, while sound designer Ben Carr does some excellent work in the scene in which Sarah learns of her mother’s death, mixing in the sound of an airplane engine powering down to reflect how Sarah feels like aspects of herself and her experience are shutting down. Though it is admittedly small-scale, Queen of Glory is a quietly affecting film that depicts the ways in which new and surprising loved ones can enter our lives, even after our most treasured people have left them. It marks out Mensah as a major talent on multiple fronts.
Photo courtesy of Film Movement
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