SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Sinners. If you have not yet seen the film, proceed at your own risk!
There are so many great things about Ryan Coogler's Sinners that you can briefly forget just how deeply layered the cinematic experience is. It starts off as an exciting crime story before events spiral out of control and it becomes a horror tale, but there's also the incredible music, and, of course, the romance. The latter is an aspect of the film that may not get as much attention as the others, but it's something that star Hailee Steinfeld certainly appreciates and recently highlighted in an interview.
Variety gathered Steinfeld and co-stars Wunmi Mosaku and Li Jun Li for a recent roundtable discussion of Sinners (which is now available to stream with a HBO Max subscription), and within the conversation, the True Grit actress commented on the relationship between Mary and Michael B. Jordan's Stack – a big taboo during the period in which the movie is set. The fact that both characters are ultimately transformed into vampires means that their love and connection becomes eternal, however, and Steinfeld loves that she can see their eternity together in the subtleties of their bond. Said the actress,
There’s something so incredible about each moment that Mary and Stack have together, that we catch a glimpse of what that forever could look like. You feel it when you when you see two of them. Stack says so much by not even looking at Mary a lot of the times when he’s having a conversation with her — and that’s for more reasons than one. But it’s the conflict of him coming to terms with being able to admit that he wants to be there with her, and it’s her trying to pull that out of him.
The relationship between Mary and Stack is complicated from the jump – when the former sees that the latter has returned to their hometown without notifying her. There is more push than pull at the start, as she has felt spurned by him and won't simply let him get away with it, but the story draws them together as Stack and his twin brother Smoke set up their juke joint. Things take a bloody turn when she is turned into a vampire and then she turns him into a vampire, and that seals them together forever.
It's horrific... but it's also romantic, as Steinfeld notes:
But there’s this wonderful turn of events that I found to be so positive — given that it’s driven by love, and by Mary’s desire to have that happily ever after, to have that connection and that acceptance and that love and respect and support from the one person she’s only ever felt it from — apart from maybe her mom, who she lost. So, I love the fact that we got to end with that moment, that we were able to catch glimpses of throughout.
It's a strange love that movie-goers can now appreciate over and over again. Following its outrageously successful box office run during the spring, Sinners has now made its full transition to the home video market. As noted earlier, the blockbuster is now available to stream, but you can also purchase/rent it digitally from online retailers, and physical media collectors can buy it on 4K UHD/Blu-ray (today happens to be the official release date).