Mo’Nique Returns to the Big Screen in Indie Film, ‘Blackbird’

After a long hiatus, Oscar-winning actress Monique is set to return to the big screen.

Deadline reports that she’ll join Isaiah Washington in the Patrik Ian Polk-directed Blackbird. The film is an adaptation of the novel by Larry Duplechan and will be produced by Monique and her husband, Sidney Hicks, through Hicks Media.

Here’s a brief synopsis:

Newcomer Julian Walker plays the star singer in the church choir who feels like a misfit in his high school and struggles with his sexual awakening and the realization he is gay, something that doesn’t land well in a religiously conservative small Mississippi town. This coincides with his younger sister going missing and his parents splitting up. Mo’Nique plays another character who’s not going to win mother of the year awards: the youth’s heartbroken mom, who blames her son’s lifestyle revelation for his sister going missing. Washington plays his supportive father trying his best to help his son’s transition to manhood.

Speaking to Deadline about the film, Sidney says:

“Blackbird is a film about the choices people are forced to make as they struggle to figure out how to be themselves,” Hicks said. “And why should just being who you are be a struggle?

Since Mo’Nique won the Oscar, we have received a flood of scripts, but nothing captured our attention until Isaiah — who we have a high level of respect for — sent us Blackbird. We became instant fans of Patrik-Ian Polk and knew we had to get behind this important film.”

It sounds like a great film to us! We can’t wait to get the first look!