Donald Glover & Rihanna's 'Guava Island' Debuted To Rave Reviews From So Many Fans
You might think that Coachella is all about music, camping, and creative outfits, but the desert music festival premiered a film this year that festival-goers are absolutely loving. The film is called Guava Island, and it stars Donald Glover, the Coachella weekend one headliner, and Rihanna. If you want a taste of what people think about it, take a look at the tweets about Guava Island with Rihanna and Donald Glover, because fans are highlighting how amazing the film is, and I kind of wish I had gone to Coachella just to be part of the premiere.
Guava Island, the 55-minute film directed by Hiro Murai (also a director on Glover's "This is America" music video and his FX show Atlanta) premiered at Coachella on Thursday, April 11, to an audience of 100 people in a constructed theater. The cast of the film includes Rihanna, Letitia Wright, and Nonso Anozie, and the film itself is a mix of live action and animated sequences. The IMDb page for Guava Island describes the film as a thriller, calling it, "A tropical thriller that casts Donald Glover as a musician with designs on pulling off a scheme to rob his way into the good life, which quickly gets him in over his head." The Amazon Prime description specifies that Glover's character "is determined to throw a festival for everyone to enjoy." Pretty meta. Speaking of Amazon Prime, Guava Island is available for free for Prime users for a limited time, so don't worry if you weren't one of the 100 lucky first-time viewers in the desert theater.
People who have already seem the film are giving it enthusiastic and positive reviews on Twitter. Whether it was the acting, the soundtrack, the direction, or the animation, everyone has something good to say about Guava Island.
While anyone can watch Guava Island from the comfort of their home and Amazon Prime accounts, The Hollywood Reporter described the Coachella premiere as pretty magical. The Hollywood Reporter said that the constructed metal theater was "decorated with faux grass flooring, tie-dyed cushions and coordinating fleece blankets" and it boasted five projectors, and colorful graphics alongside the film like animations of cityscapes, tropical trees, gears, beach scenes, and people. Through Rihanna didn't sing at all during the movie, three of Glover/Childish Gambino's songs including “This is America,” “Summertime Magic" and "Feels Like Summer" were featured in the film, all which added some powerful musical moments to the film.
This is the first year Glover headlined Coachella, and by all reports things went pretty well for the singer/actor/producer/writer/personality. According to the AV Club, he not only performed a new song and some old classics, but he also took to the stage to talk about some of his friends and influences who have passed like Nipsey Hussle, Mac Miller, and his father. Judging by fan videos and live streams on YouTube, Glover's show was filled with theatrics and high energy, as any good Coachella set is.
Hopefully Glover releases his new song for non-Coachella-goers sometime soon. In the meantime, you can find me watching glued to Amazon Prime to check out the gorgeous visuals of Guava Island for the foreseeable future.
