Zola (2020)

dir Janicza Bravo

Originally watched on July 8, 2026.

For months (years?) now, my friend has been telling me I needed to watch Zola. I didn’t get it. I figured it was going to be a hot mess and she just wanted to gawk at it together. Nope. Not at all the vibe. Why was this actually a totally fabulous surrealist masterpiece? People throw the term Lynchian around wayyy too much these days, but this is one movie that actually feels deserving of the title. We get this bizarre method of storytelling including dream sequences, fuzzy retellings, she-said-she-said action, all in a successful attempt to reflect the meandering energy of the original Twitter thread.

Were you around to read the original Zola thread? I remember it vividly. The mother of all threads. Things were never the same. Shit, things were probably never the same for Zola after this, either. The craziest part to me (other than how good Riley Keough is at playing this nasty type of white girl- seriously is it creeping anyone else out? I’m scared she tapped into something deep for this. Keep this woman at arms length) is that Zola wasn’t fucking paid for her work on this film. Flop! Can you believe it? I unfortunately can. Because if there’s one thing that the world is going to do it’s continue to exploit the already-exploited. Drain the drained. It’s so unfair, so ugly. Justice for Aziah Zola Wells!