Sinners has mainly been advertised on the prospect of Michael B. Jordan playing twins and going up against vampires. Both of those are in the film, but its true protagonist is Sammie (Miles Caton), the SmokeStack twins’ young cousin. Much of the events center on his musical talents and how its brings the people of 1930s Clarksdale to the twins’ juke joint—including the vampires that just wanna join in on the festivities. But what becomes a polite request to be let in turns into a hostile takeover, and then the rest of the movie happens.
After all’s said and done, Sammie’s the only human to survive the night at the juke joint. Instead of returning to his family and leaving music behind, Sammie leaves town altogether and becomes a famous blues player. Flash forward to 1992, and the older Sammie (played by real-world Chicago guitarist Buddy Guy) has just performed when two familiar faces show up: Stack and his girlfriend Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), who were both turned in 1932 and skipped town as the other vampires before the sun burnt up the other vampires. Smoke let Stack live on the promise he leave Sammie alone, but the ageless pair just had to see how the preacher boy was doing for himself. The vampires offer to turn him so he can live forever and keep on playing, but he kindly refuses, and bids them farewell with some old school blues like he used to play back in the day.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, director/writer Ryan Coogler revealed he initially had trouble shooting the scene. When he asked Jordan what Stack would do in this moment, his longtime collaborator decided to put his fake fangs in and get in close to Guy’s neck. Jordan was already wearing his 90s costume and contact lenses for Stack’s glowing eyes, and Guy’s 88 years old, so Coogler initially freaked out. But it was just a hug, and quite an eye-opening moment for the filmmaker.
“Bro, I broke down in crying tears because I realized this whole movie was about that,” Coogler said. “In many ways, it was a reason for the movie. It was about me not saying goodbye to my uncle. […] The scene is incredibly important to the narrative in many ways, and the movie’s driving towards that moment.” He’s previously described Sinners as a love letter to his family history and in particular his uncle James, who passed in 2015 as he was in post-production on the first Creed. Upon hearing his uncle died, Coogler remembered “feeling like shit. It was something I felt I had to reckon with.”
Loss is a major theme for several characters in Sinners, several of whom recently lost family or remember those who’ve been gone for some time. Smoke dies thinking of his estranged wife Annie (Wunmi Osaku), who died during the vampire attack, and their baby daughter, who passed before the events of the film. Coogler’s loss drove him to the blues music his late uncle used to love, including Guy. When he was alive, his uncle loved “listening to blues records on vinyl and listening to or watching the San Francisco Giants play baseball. If the music was good and you had enough to drink, you might get a story out of him.” As Coogler told EW, going back to the blues years later felt like “conjuring [James’] spirit,” which came to inform how Sammie’s music—like other music of the African diaspora—can summon spirits of the past and future, as seen earlier in the film.
For Sammie, that night at the juke joint was the best of his life, and he felt alive playing for the patrons. The same is true for Stack, since it was the last time he saw Smoke, got to see the sun, and felt “truly free.” Despite music ultimately being what led to that traumatic night, it’s what brought them together then and now for the final time, and it can keep loved ones alive long after they’re gone.
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