WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
I ended up writing this article due to stumbling across the fact that Janelle is a singer when looking into her for the first film on this list. I can’t comment on her work as a singer because I have never really listened to her (even though I realised the other day that she actually features on fun.’s song We Are Young) but what I can say from the films I’ve seen her in (see below for more…) she is a pretty good actress.
Glass Onion
I don’t want to say too much about this film because I don’t want to ruin how good it is (possibly better than the first but then I haven’t seen it for a while) and it will mean ruining something very important concerning Janelle herself. Without going into detail, I feel she is absolutely amazing in the role she plays and the way her character and Daniel craigs character, Benoit Blanc, play off of each other is just brilliant.
Hidden Figures
I just want to start off by saying I love this film! Focused specifically on the 3 women influential in the John Glenn launch of the Friendship 7 space craft in 1962. Janelle Monae plays Mary Jackson, a mathematician and aerospace engineer with NASA. She’s sassy and strong-willed! The main thing that bothers me about this, and it’s only because I looked into it, by 1961 when this film is set, Mary had already done her engineering exams and was the first negro female engineer. Actually because of this it bothers me more that they focus on Tarji P. Henson’s character of Catherine more than Mary (even though the maths is just as important)
Antebellum
I was originally going to talk about her role in The Glorias but I thought that as I had already covered a biopic, where she plays a reasonably ancillary character, I would pick a horror film where she plays the lead. For so long, Janelle barely speaks. She remains stoic letting her facial expressions do the talking for her unless there is something important to say. For a second, I didn’t think the write up of this matched the film I was watching and then suddenly the tone of the film changed at ring of a mobile phone. Minor weird things start to happen – proving the past will always affect the future, or will it? The twist, or should I say reveal, is something else! I’ll be honest I don’t know what’s darker – thinking we were seeing Veronica’s past life, or what actually turns out to be the truth
Honorary Mentions
As mentioned above, I was going to watch The Glorias but I am glad I changed my mind. I actually didn’t realise until I did a little more digging that she also played Mahershala Ali’s girlfriend in Moonlight (a film I will be discussing in a future article). Janelle has also lent her voice to characters in both Rio 2 and Uglydolls. The film I was disappointed I was unable to watch was Harriet where she takes on the role of Harriet Tubman.
