Guava Island Review

Guava Island, Amazon Prime’s lush new anti-capitalist musical starring Rihanna and Donald Glover, was undoubtably curated for Glover despite not having a role in writing or directing. Guava Island even goes so far to present itself as “A Childish Gambino Film”. While this may be a strength for the films marketing, it is also its biggest issue. Guava Island feels so bound by Glovers most recently released songs that it struggles to elevate many of the films key themes, resulting in an experience that falls short of Glover’s usually high standard.

From YouTube comedian, to Golden Globe winning actor, to Grammy winning rapper, to Emmy winning director, the creativity of Donald Glover and the team he surrounds himself with seems limitless. With a screenplay written by Donald’s brother Steven, and once again getting the help of long-time collaborator Hiro Murai, director of Donald Glovers television show Atlanta and his viral music video phenomena This is America, Guava Island seemed to be in good hands. Yet the result appears to have an identity crisis, at a spry 55 minutes, Guava Island lacks the narrative depth of a film while not being musically focused enough to be considered a visual album. Resulting in an experience that feels shallow, leaving the films many themes vastly unexplored.

The film follows Deni, a locally famous musician and Kofi, a seamstress. Two nearly life-life long lovers of the titular Guava Island, a once brimming paradise corrupted by the greed and power of totalitarianism. While Kofi wishes to leave the island and start a life somewhere new, Deni’s desires are far more liberating, organizing a music festival in order to free the people of the constant pressures of work and oppression, even just for a day. However, this idea is not liked by the malicious overlord Red Cargo, who sees Deni’s festival as a threat to his businesses and will go to great lengths in order to prevent Deni from having it.

Guava Islands vibrant animated intro sets the stage for its narrative, yet the film struggles to produce anything that challenges the themes that the movie focuses so much of its short runtime on. Instead choosing to shoehorn as many Childish Gambino songs in as possible, regardless of the song’s lyrical relevancy to the story.

The film also suffers from the utilization of it’s co-star. Rihanna’s role feels painfully miniscule, with the choice to not include her on any of the music being the films most questionable creative decision. So often is she given nothing meaningful to do or say, forcing her to constantly be over shadowed by the swooning Donald Glover.

Guava Islands biggest strength is in it’s visuals. Cinematographer Christians Springers warm lighting and heavy film grain breaths a dreamlike quality into the exuberant tropical locales and pastel homes of the island. Murai’s directing is brimming with style, every shot is framed to a near perfection in a polaroid like 4x3 aspect ratio.

However, the films breezy aesthetic only carries the film so far, Guava Islands short runtime and priority on music quickly makes Donald Glovers newest project more style than substance.

Beautiful visuals with a lack of formed narrative leaves Guava Island feeling more like a glorified collection of music videos.

Produced By: Amazon Prime
Runtime: 55 minutes
Rating: Not Rated