Coming-of-age tales are a Hollywood standard, so why not kick up some dust in the dramatic subgenre with a little magic? The sophomore feature film from writer and director J.D. Dillard tells the story of a young street magician named Bo whose side hustle is selling drugs so he can earn enough money to take care of his little sister (played by Storm Reid, whom we will soon see a lot more of in A Wrinkle in Time). But when Bo decides he wants to leave the life of crime behind, his dealer doesn’t take kindly to the news and things turn violent, leaving the young illusionist to use his unique set of skills to protect himself and his loved ones. Sleight premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, and has been receiving strong praise, not least of all for the great lead turn by Jacob Latimore, and the impressive way Dillard pulled off the visual effects on a tight budget. The movie has been getting compared to Josh Trank’s excellent lo-fi superhero movie Chronicle from 2012, and we suspect that has to do with cool tricks like this.
See All the Magic and Mayhem in the New Trailer for Sleight
