ZOLA - cinemabang.com

The history of the movies are listed with numerous firsts, first movie, first talkie, first colour film etc. Now with Zola we have a new first, a movie based on a conversation on Twitter. Yes Twitter.

In 2015 a part time dancer from Detroit called A ‘ Ziah “Zola” King (newcomer Taylour Paige) started a Twitter chat about how she had been convinced to go on a road trip to Florida by a girl, Stefani (Riley Keough), who she had just struck up a friendship with. Heading off with Zola’s friend who turns out to be her pimp (Colman Domingo) and her not so clever boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun), Zola was under the impression that she was going to earn good money from pole dancing whereas in reality it was far seedier than that.

A movie based on a Twitter conversation is probably not the best way to fill 90 minutes of a Hollywood feature but to his credit writer-director Janicza Bravo manages to make us care about his characters, both Paige and Keough are terrific in their respective roles.

Coupled with some great cinematography and a short running time that’s probably merited given its limited storyline Zola is an enjoyable if somewhat simple tale of how never to trust anyone you just meet and if you do just tell your story on Twitter as you just never know what might happen.