So Valentine's Day always has that romantic comedy that comes around for people to go see with their significant other, girlfriends, or just solo. We haven't had a Valentine's Day movie since the days of the Fifty Shades franchise. But this year, we're got a movie with black leads with successful jobs and they fall in love in an enviornment that doesn't have violence, trauma, or slavery.
The Photograph stars Issa Rae and Lakeith Stansfield as Mae and Michael. When Mae's mother, Christina, passes away, she leaves behind letters and photographs to tell her the story of her life. Michael pops up at her job as he's doing a story on her mom for the newspaper he writes for. They instantly have the awkward and cute chemistry that many of us have when we met someone the first and on the first date. Throughout the movie, we jump between the past and the present as we see Mae's mother's love story with her boyfriend, Issac, in the eighty's. We also find out some secrets Christina kept for years that play a role in the story that connects all the pieces together but I won't spoil it for you.
We haven't had a genuine movie like this in a long time. We have a majority black cast with two dark skin actors as the leads. We have positive representation of healthy relationships that doesn't involve trauma, slavery, or violence that we see time and time again in movies and on TV. There's no struggle love where one person cheats or they are toxic together. We have a black family that is happy and the couple is still in love after ten plus years. Now people have negative things to say because they try to compare it to past movies like Love Jones or Love and Basketball. Those movies were made for a different time. This movie was made for milennials and this is our Love Jones for us.
So here's my honest review. I really liked this movie. Issa and Lakeith's chemistry on screen was so organic and it didn't feel forced like other movies we've seen. The same goes for Chante Adams and Y'Lan Noel who play Christina and Issac. We see a relationship were one person wants simplicity while the other wants more out of life than just being domestic. We were rooting for both of these stories we were watching. It got me in my feelings and I related to it so much because Christina and Mae are me. I'm someone who wants to have dreams and aspirations but I also want an uncomplicated romantic relationship. I have commitment issues but I also struggle expressing my real feelings. Us, as women, we have a list of want we want in an ideal mate and we tend to push away people who don't meet every box.
I actually got some advice from an older woman while me and my friend left the theater after the movie. We were talking about the movie as a whole and she was dropping gems about how we block people with walls that we build around ourselves and protect us from the potential heartbreak. We put the pre-assumption that every guy is the same but it's not. She said to us "Create your own title" meaning we make our own choices and decide about what we want for ourselves and not the rest of the world. I also loved the cinematography they displayed in this movie. The settings of New Orleans and New York City. The soundtrack was also fire and I definetly recommend you go check it out for yourself. If you're an R&B head, go check out the artist H.E.R. She sings in the trailer as well as the main soundtrack for the film. On my movie ranking scale, I give it an eight out of ten because I would've liked to have more time with the present relationship of Mike and Mae. It felt like the relationship was rushed but I think the writers were going for the falling in love so quickly angle for them. I can tell you that the final scene will have you in your feels and will want you to have the same romantic gesture done for you.
This is the start of some many stories about black and brown people being produced and integrated into modern day media. Seeing people who look like us in a normal and positive light is so refreshing. So go support these stories, these black stories, because they need to be told. We need representation like us in film and this is just the beginning.
