Zola

Director: Janicza Bravo
Year Released: 2020
Rating: 0.0

Waitress/stripper Zola (Taylour Paige) starts hanging out with Stefani (Riley Keough) who convinces her to travel to Tampa to "dance," but it turns out Stefani's a "call girl," her pimp is Abegunde (Colman Domingo) and the two end up in multiple very tense situations.  The fact that this whole "story" started off as a series of tweets by real-life pole dancer Aziah Wells - not to mention an article in Rolling Stone by David Kushner too - helps explain why it's so lacking in detail, but what's inexcusable is that every single character in it is totally reprehensible and impossible to empathize with, especially the main character, who instead of helping her "friend" flee, just told her to raise her prices on Backpage.  It's a shame it's a complete failure, because it wastes a fine performance by Domingo as someone heartless enough to sell and control women ... I don't personally understand the magnetism to monsters, but it happens, unfortunately.