So the trailer for Sundance indie feature, Love, Brooklyn popped up on my timeline recently and I was here for it. The Love Jones vibes were strong and we’re long overdue for another beautiful Black romantic film. Not to mention that as a native New Yorker, I’m always psyched about films that represent the New York I grew up in so yeah, I was completely on board.
Full disclosure, while I spent a few years in Planet Brooklyn, that is not my native borough and the Brooklyn in this movie? Nothing like the one I lived in. But maybe that’s the point.
Roger (Andre Holland), is doing everything BUT his job writing an article highlighting the new chapter in post-covid Brooklyn. To his dismay, as he pedals his ten-speed through the pristine, tree-lined, traffic-lite streets, splitting his time between his ex-girlfriend, Casey (Nicole Beharie) and his new fling, Nicole (DeWanda Wise), all he sees is a sanitized, gentrified version of the city that he loves. And thus lies the crux of my biggest beef with this movie. If you’re going to say, “Love, Brooklyn” then Brooklyn better be another character. Instead, this movie felt like, “Love, any urban epicenter, USA”. You could’ve dropped this story in any gentrifying city and it really wouldn’t have changed a thing. This was confirmed for me in the post-film Q&A when director Rachel Abigail Holder said the writer’s (Paul Zimmerman) original setting was Manhattan. It felt like the the location changed but not the heart.
Compare that to Highest 2 Lowest, which I also caught this weekend. Say what you want about Spike but one thing he’s always gonna do, is put you dead center in his world. When Young Felon (A$AP Rocky) tells King (Denzel Washington) to take the 2 train into Money Makin’ Manhattan, we all going to the city! And it’s not just the MTA signs and skyscrapers, it’s the little things that come from the belly of a person who really knows a place. Spike put us on that train with all of the oddities that occur on a subway ride from one borough to the next. Then he dropped us in the thick of the Puerto Rican Day parade where we could practically smell the alcapurrias and empanadas.
I can get past the alt-reality-Brooklyn thing if the sanitization and gentrification is actually the point but I cannot get past the fact that I didn’t feel an iota of chemistry between Andre Holland and DeWanda Wise. Intellectually, the concept of their refreshingly honest relationship was admirable, if not brutal–especially the scene where Nicole wrecked Roger’s entire ego by talking about her late husband (Roger deserved that sh*t)–but otherwise, nada. And the chemistry was only slightly higher between he and Nicole Beharie, but that might be because she stole just about every scene she touched.
My favorite part? Roy Wood Jr. as Alan with all of his ridiculous antics. Loved him every time he showed up! His constant fantasies of cheating on his wife would make a weaker woman wonder but Beth knew her husband wasn’t really about that life. When WE figured that out too, it was the movie’s best moment. And Cassandra Freeman was hysterical – like if her Vivian Banks character from Bel-Air actually believed her own hype.
Interesting tidbit, this wasn’t originally intended to be a Black film. A Manhattan-based love story written by a white writer with white leads in mind, the director first thought an interracial love story would be more interesting. Then, after casting the female leads, they began to ideate about what this could look like as a fully Black story.
All in all, a decent film, if not just a little bit boring. Still, it was nice watching Black people just living their lives uncentered from the white gaze or weighed down by racism and trauma.
Rating: C+
Level of Enthusiasm: 75%
