When waitress and stripper Zola (Taylour Paige) meets Stefani (Riley Keough) whilst serving at a restaurant they hit it off and exchange numbers. The next day Stefani invites her to Florida to dance at a club where she promises they will make big money. So Zola sets off with Stefani, her boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun) and her room mate (Colman Domingo). 

Unfortunately Zola realises too late that the room mate is actually her pimp and Stefani has set her up. 

Zola is based on a 148 long tweet thread that A’zaih ‘Zola’ King made in 2015 and the subsequent Rolling Stone article by David Kushner. Opening with the line “Y’all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch fell out??? It’s kind of long but full of suspense” before going on to tell a crazy story of stripping, prostitution and dangerous pimps. 

The film co-written by Janicza Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris and directed by Bravo manages to perfectly convey the staccato social media vibe of the original story and deliver an unreliable narrator story full of suspense and shocking moments. The screenplay is delivered at break neck speed by Paige and Keough and features direct quotes from the tweet thread and a huge amount of slang that is perfectly understandable thanks to the context of what is happening on screen. 

Paige and Keough are mesmerising in their delivery as well and alongside the constant text tones bleeping along to the words coming out of their mouths the whole thing becomes the perfect embodiment of texting and tweeting writ large on screen. Colman Domingo should be given some plaudits as well playing what could have been a generic pimp with the sort of gusto that really makes you start to fear for the women’s lives. 

The story is thin though and even at 86 minutes it feels a little stretched with a pretty abrupt ending. Although it is of course In keeping with the original source material. 

Definitely worth checking out although I would recommend checking out both the original tweet thread and Rolling Stone article after seeing the film so as to not ruin the rollercoaster ride that it is.