The love story at the film’s center feels curiously weightless, despite strong performances from a talented cast.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Typically, in a love story like “Love, Brooklyn,” where a protagonist is torn between two lovers, the audience tends to root for one of them to win the day. This is as old as Jane Austen. But this is not the case with “Love, Brooklyn.” I don’t think we care who the protagonist ends up with.
The protagonist in question is a writer who is (symbol alert) blocked. His name is Roger (Andre Holland, “Moonlight”), and he tools around mostly upscale Brooklyn neighborhoods on his bicycle, riding (a little too blissfully) down the middle of the road, gazing upon Brooklyn as if it is an evolving work of art. He carries his bike up the stairs of the townhouse, where he occupies an entire floor. At his desk sits his laptop. He doesn’t get much work done, if any. He is, however, drinking too much and smoking too much weed. His editor (Lisa Lucas) is getting increasingly stern with him.
His assignment is to write an essay about Brooklyn. The unwritten essay is the equivalent of a musical accompaniment to the film, which is a love song to Brooklyn. Is Roger going to write about the Brooklyn of the past, where Black people supposedly lived in peace and harmony and were historic landowners, or the Brooklyn of the present, which he believes is “de-volving,” with Black pioneers being pushed out by rich, white newcomers, seeking the precious land so close to overpriced Manhattan? If that sounds to you like the story of the Brooklyn of 25 years ago, you’re right.
But the gentrification continues. Roger is still quite close to his former lover, Casey (a funny and vivacious Nicole Beharie), the owner of a Brooklyn art gallery full of the work of Black Brooklyn artists. Thanks to her grandmother, Casey is also the owner of the building that houses the gallery, a building some developers (We assume they’re white.) would like to purchase. Roger has also become newly involved romantically with Nicole (an ethereal DeWanda Wise, TV’s “She’s Gotta Have It”), a widow and single mother, who lives in a Brooklyn home and is studying to be a massage therapist. Nicole’s young daughter Ally (the excellent Cadence Reese) has a habit of interrupting her mother and her mother’s new “friend.” It’s clear that the little girl is desperate for a father figure to fill the gap left by her late dad. How did he die? Those are among the details this film does not care to provide. One thing is for certain: Ally’s desire for a father figure is one of this film’s driving forces. Is Roger up to it?
“Love, Brooklyn,” whose title inevitably recalls the beloved 2003 British Christmas rom-com “Love, Actually,” is not a gritty, often hard-pressed depiction of Brooklyn in the style of Spike Lee’s “Chronicles of Brooklyn.” Directed by Rachael Holder, making her feature debut after a few TV directing credits, the film, scripted by first-timer Paul Zimmerman, is a light, somewhat superficial depiction of the twists and turns of love within a certain well-educated, property-owning, upper-middle-class Black milieu seldom seen in American movies. Is there more to know about these characters outside of how tangled up they are? For sure.
Roger is a handsome, talented, affluent (or so it seems) young man who has (more than) reached the point where young men usually settle down and start a family. We don’t know a lot about him except that he is a (blocked) writer, late with an assignment. Who is the assignment for? We don’t know. He does not appear to have relatives either. Zimmerman’s screenplay might be described as Nancy Meyers with fewer laughs and smaller kitchens.
Roger does have a male friend named Alan (Roy Wood Jr.), who is married with a child and therefore cannot get enough of the details of Roger’s active, single, love life. We hear the prophetic thud of the tale of Sodom & Gomorrah and Lot’s unnamed wife, who will soon be a “pillar of salt.” After being told that Ally wants some time with Roger alone, he schedules a “Tuesday in the park with Ally.”
Casey and Roger run into one another in one of the many scenes shot in either Brooklyn’s Prospect Park or Fort Greene Park. “Love, Brooklyn” has a lot of green in it. Casey invites Roger to a dinner with one of her clients. They leave early and go to a bar. They drink too much. Will Roger end up with Nicole and little Ally or with Casey? Except for Ally, I don’t think we really care.
‘Love, Brooklyn’
Rating: Not rated, mature themes, sexually suggestive content, profanity.
Cast: Andre Holland, DeWanda Wise, Nicole Beharie, Roy Wood Jr.
Director: Rachael Holder
Writer: Paul Zimmerman
Running time: 97 minutes
Where to Watch: AMC Boston Common
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