How the Overuse of Grit in Sinners Dragged It Down
Nowadays, if Hollywood movies aren’t bleak and bathed in shadows, they are not considered serious cinema. Or at least,
Nowadays, if Hollywood movies aren’t bleak and bathed in shadows, they are not considered serious cinema. Or at least, that is what Hollywood seems to think.
And this is what I think: Sinners is gritty for gritty’s sake. It’s a clear example of the overuse of grit in Sinners, where excessive gloom and heaviness are mistaken for depth. The film becomes a victim of this trend, relying too much on darkness just for the sake of storytelling. Somehow, it seems to be suffering from it. I’ll explain how.
What “gritty for gritty’s sake” means
The term ‘gritty for gritty’s sake’ means the use of violence, bleakness, and dark themes not as tools for storytelling but for aesthetics. It is less for storytelling and authenticity and more for emotional intensity on purpose.
One of the movies that is gritty for no reason is Irreversible (2002). It is a French art film and the story revolves around Alex who is brutally raped by a stranger. Her boyfriend and ex-lover try to get their hands on the criminal.
The film has a shaky camera effect with a found-footage kind of feel. People say it is a hard watch due to high-intensity scenes and camera rolling all over the place. The plot’s purpose is rarely served, and the connection with the characters is almost absent.
In contrast, films like Prisoners (2013) and Seven (1995) have made use of grit intelligently. For example, in Se7en, the case of a serial killer who brutally murders anyone who commits the seven deadly sins is shown explicitly. It cannot be considered as an emotional shortcut, as Seven showed true grit with certain elements, such as constant rain to show a dark and edgy theme, the killer’s perspectives of sins, which were gritty, terrifying, and manipulative, and the overwhelming darkness of the grisly murders.
How does the overuse of grit in Sinners impact its emotional depth?
Without gritty elements, Hollywood movies aren’t perceived as serious. The dark and gloomy effect in Sinners’ storytelling matches the same idea, as the overuse of dark themes without the story’s depth is evident. It means that the story introduces compelling characters and relationships, especially when the twin brothers portrayed by Michael B. Jordan come back to their home to open a juke cafe, but the characters around them don’t get enough screen time to fully explore their complexities.
Besides, a sudden introduction of vampires around the themes of family, race, identity, and redemption doesn’t seem to fit well with the vampire’s dark, edgy side of the story. The true grit movies give a clear moral and complex reflection of societal and human conditions, interpreting the deep nature of good and evil. The grit in Sinners is exploited for the sake of establishing moral and social codes.
The message seems lost somewhere. The characters are used as caricatures of pain as they only exist to suffer, and some others who inflict pain. Even if I see that the broad message of the film is the use of Christianity to suppress Black and Irish communities, the overuse of vampires’ overwhelming darkness still does not make sense. No emotional layers subsist with excessive blood, stabbings, shootings, and bloody injuries in the presence of a vampire. Were vampires used forcefully just to create a dark cinematic experience?
Talking about the darkness, the film is mostly shot in literal darkness. Bleak visuals with no contrast might seem appealing to set the tone of the film’s narrative, but a uniform grimness projects emotional fatigue for the viewers rather than engagement. Here again, if we compare to the constant rain in the movie Se7en, it was inevitable to stop the rain then due to the El Nino event. Due to Brad Pitt’s limited availability, the director David Fincher decided to use it as a constant backdrop to set the film’s mood, as per Cinema Blend.
It is understandable that sometimes low-key lighting is used in movies to evoke a sense of mystery, symbolize moral failings and their consequences, show sadness or hopelessness, or contribute to a sense of isolation. But the problem with the overuse of grit when it comes to low-key lighting in Sinners is that it was hard to make out the characters and the faces, even their facial expressions, in such under-lit scenes.
The cost of grit without substance
Sinners‘ movie gritty trend has cost it a bit, as it has been criticized for lacking in-depth emotional character building. Just dialogue dumps don’t do the thing. The particular portrayal of relationships and their consequences has not been probed deeply, which might have proved more thought-provoking for the audience rather than numbing them.
There is an emotional detachment by showing too much bloody flesh, sometimes making the scenes rushed and disconnected. Although the film’s themes of religion, oppression, and identity have emotional depth themselves, they don’t comprehensively talk about the emotional journeys of the characters, leaving unearned emotions.
Several missed opportunities exist in terms of tangential characters. For instance, the vampires and jazz musicians’ friends whose characters weren’t explored thoroughly, thus making their deaths unmoving and disconnected. No space for character growth was witnessed, which might have made the story more compelling.
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Why this trend persists
Today’s audience connects more with the content that makes them teary-eyed. They connect with things that move them from inside. They connect with things that they can relate to.
The grit problem in modern cinema is its perception that ‘serious’ films must be dark. This is a problematic trend since darkness is a powerful tool that can be used in so many other ways. Conveying the mood and setting the atmosphere are perfect means for keeping the tone serious. It’s not always the flesh and blood that equates to the darkness of a film, considering it a serious movie.
Filmmakers are mistaking tone for complexity; the oversimplification of artistry that does not connect emotionally makes the content fall flat, just like in Sinners. Despite Sinners being a bold film, it struggled with keeping things straight. It struggled with not making things messy, as it somewhat muddled the themes.
Conclusion
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is the first horror film in 47 years that gained an A rating in CinemaScore. It means that it has a high likelihood that the audience will recommend it to others, indicating a strong sign of its success. It is quite manifested in its box office numbers with a massive $45 million collection on the second weekend, per Variety.
Sinners exemplifies a growing problem in modern storytelling, which is deliberately and provocatively following the dark and edgy movie trend. A more thoughtful balance could have been sustained if deeper thematic cohesion had been visible. Sinners fails to consolidate many themes into a coherent whole, which is possibly a reason for its failure to make an emotional bond with the audience, regardless of being a global box office hit.
I know, it was meant to be that way- more dark, gloomy, and gritty, but the filmmakers today should realize that depending solely on darkness and believing that it will do the heavy lifting is not enough. Cinematic preferences are changing, and if films keep following the pattern of Sinners, there would be nothing left but a burden of films cloaked in shadows.
