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Right at the start of “Really Love,” the film’s romantic female lead, Stevie, delivers the movie’s thesis. It’s the film’s meet-cute, and as she stands in front of a portrait at an art gallery, she muses to her soon-to-be sweetheart that it shows “Black people as extraordinary and normal at the same time. So intense.” Stevie is talking about the painting, but this is also the screenwriter talking about the film itself.

Unfortunately, the film is heavy on the normal and light on the extraordinary, making for an underwhelming romantic drama. Written, directed and produced by Black women — Felicia Pride, Angel Kristi Williams and Mel Jones respectively — “Really Love” is a Black love story about Stevie Richmond (Yootha Wong-Loi-Sing), an ambitious law student, and Isaiah Maxwell (Kofi Siriboe), a young and talented painter. The film is no grand love story. It’s a story of the banal, of how life can get in the way of love.

To understand the underwhelming quality of “Really Love,” you have to understand the moment Black film and Black culture is in right now. Black audiences and creatives are calling for more mundane stories of Black people’s everyday lives and of Black joy.

The push is more than understandable considering the film industry’s frequent elevation of stories that depict Black trauma. The perpetual production and praise of these films, and not others with lighter subject matter, constructs an image of Black life characterized solely by struggle and strife.

From inside the industry, another call is being made for Black filmmakers to be able to make mediocre films and still get more opportunities to make films after that. Black filmmakers want the same second, third and fourth chances that white male filmmakers get.

Right now, however, that call for Black filmmakers’ freedom to make mediocre work that doesn’t end their careers is being conflated with the desire for the sort of understated films that show everyday Black life. “Really Love” sits at the nexus of those two distinct impulses in the culture right now. The film is simply mediocre.

Visually, the film is aesthetically pleasing but lacks narrative substance. Cinematographer Shawn Peters clearly knows how to light the various shades and smooth textures of brown skin so that it shines and pops on camera.

In the obligatory romantic drama montage of couple Stevie and Isaiah going around town getting to know each other, a vintage film grain filter and jazz score work together to capture the beauty and sensuality of their burgeoning connection. The jazz is especially giving Spike Lee à la “She’s Gotta Have It” (1986) in an attempt to link the film with a more independent, artistic Black film tradition.

Beyond the pretty picture and at the level of narrative though, the chemistry between Stevie and Isaiah is barely there, and the performances leave much to be desired. As I watched, I kept asking myself, “Where is the passion, where is the romance, where is the drama?”

As fiction writer Brandon Taylor wrote in his weekly newsletter, “sweater weather,” “Things have never looked so good. Or sounded so good. But at the same time, never has it been easier to borrow the signifiers and attributes of good art and commodify them to disguise deeply mediocre sh*t.”

Despite having laid all the groundwork for conflict, the stakes in Stevie and Isaiah’s relationship are never high enough to make the audience truly invested in their story. She’s a lawyer, and he’s an artist. She’s from money; he’s not. He wants his artwork to just exist without making a political statement; she wants to use her law degree for political purposes instead of going corporate. You’d think these contrasts between their characters would be fertile ground for conflict, yet they never amount to any formidable obstacles.

Only about an hour into the movie do we get any real signs of conflict when the pair have their first and only big fight. Without saying too much, the fight doesn’t even make sense narratively. The jabs they launch at each other don’t sting like they should because the characters aren’t fully developed.

Stevie doesn’t even bring up the fact that Isaiah didn’t thank her during his speech at his first solo art show — even though she housed him, fed him and gave him the space he needed to be “in the zone,” often to her detriment. Couldn’t be me! Again, a missed opportunity for the writers to build on the narrative ground work they laid out.

The filmmakers of “Really Love” share the same principle as their artist protagonist. As Isaiah says in the film, he simply wants “to express (his) ideas without having to explain them to anyone, not making any sort of statement, just showing Black people as normal and beautiful and everything else.”

As a medium, however, film can’t simply show Black people as normal and beautiful. Films need a story. And all stories need conflict to work. If the film’s creators simply wanted to show Black people being normal and beautiful, they could’ve painted a portrait.

I can see what the filmmakers were going for — an understated, honest, artsy film that subtly leaves its mark on you. “Really Love” has good bones, but what we got was a mediocre film. I just hope these Black filmmakers get more chances to deliver one that extraordinarily portrays ordinary Black folks.

Well, at least I got to look at Kofi Siriboe’s fine self for an hour and a half.

Published on September 20, 2021 at 10:11 pm

Contact Madison: mntyler@syr.edu