If you saw the trailer for Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield‘s new movie, you probably already know plenty about “The Photograph” (in theaters now).
For one, you’re aware that it features a gorgeously lit cast. Also, you can tell that it has some awkward, first-date banter between the leads. And you’re attuned to the fact that the film features alluring, moody music (both Lucky Daye and H.E.R. are featured).
But what else should you know before you decide to celebrate Valentine’s Day at the movies with this romantic film from writer/director Stella Meghie? Here are five things that should help.
The 2000 film’s plot isn’t similar to “The Photograph,” but the fact that “Love & Basketball” was made by a black female filmmaker with an eye for swoon-worthy romance certainly impacted Meghie, who told The Atlantic that she could “probably recite the entire script” of “Love & Basketball.” Rae, who plays Mae in “The Photograph,” said in an interview with Variety that “Love & Basketball” is the movie that made her want to become a filmmaker. “It was just a regular love story that wasn’t rooted in any kind of trauma. It wasn’t rooted in any major deceptions.”
Stanfeld plays Michael, a reporter for fictional newspaper The Republic, who meets a man living in Louisiana while investigating a story. That man shares plenty of decades-old pictures, including one photograph (ahem, the movie title) of a woman he lost touch with. That woman turns out to be, as we learn early on in the film, Mae’s late mother (the wonderful Chanté Adams). Thus, a meet-cute between reporter Michael and museum curator Mae is imminent. The two click, and their modern story is told along with the retro one about Mae’s mother and the Louisiana man (played in the present by a heartbreaking Rob Morgan and in the past by a strapping Y’lan Noel).
As of Friday morning, the film held an 80% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics highlighting the likability of the film’s cast – while also pointing at inconsistencies in the plot.
Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang called “The Photograph” “a movie of seductive, slow-savored pleasures” while wishing that the story “had achieved a more exquisite balance between its parallel tracks.”
Indiewire’s Kate Erbland writes that “the open-hearted drama, titled ‘The Photograph’ but perhaps better referred to as ‘The Photographer’ or even ‘The Letter,’ can never quite bridge its individual stories, awkwardly shuffling between the pair and never giving either their full due.” AV Club’s Caroline Siede says that the stars have an easy chemistry and supporting characters including Mike’s brother played by Lil Rel Howery are charismatic, but the film occasionally “feels more like a low-key riff on the formulaic works of Nicholas Sparks.”
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SOURCE: USA Today – Carly Mallenbaum
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