If Beale Street Could Talk

The love story between nineteen year old shop girl Tish Rivers and twenty-two year old aspiring sculptor Fonny Hunt in early 1970s Harlem is told. They have been BFFs since they were infants, their relationship only recently and naturally having transitioned into the romantic. Most of their respective family members are happy about the relationship with the exception of Fonny's sanctimonious, holier-than-thou mother, who feels Fonny could do better in life, and Fonny's two sisters who don't fall far from the "mother" tree. Much of the romantic phase of Tish and Fonny's relationship is told in flashback in light of the current situation: Fonny has been wrongly accused of rape of a Puerto Rican immigrant and is behind bars awaiting trial, the situation largely manipulated by a racist white cop who had an earlier run-in with Fonny. Tish, her family, and Fonny's father's efforts to get the charges dropped and Fonny released from prison, all with the help of an inexperienced but eager young white lawyer, become more urgent as Tish reveals that she is pregnant with Fonny's child.