Yesterday I bought the Love Jones dvd at a vintage store in San Diego. Love Jones consistently ranks near the top movie of 25-45 year-olds Black Americans.
Love Jones is more than a rom-dram. It is an expose of middle-class Black urban life amongst the educated, complicated, sophisticated, upwardly mobile, articulate, attractive, well dressed, coiffed, employed, love seekers. This intertwined with a love story between the recently singled Nina (Nia Long) and cool renaissance man Darius Lovehall (Lorenz Tate) makes for neo soul cinema, the soundtrack even enlists Maxwell, Dionne Farris and Lauren Hill. In between the strikingly melodic cinematography, jazz playing, behop dancing, dance hall gyrating, famous quotes spewing, poetry readings, photography sessions, novel writing, Amtraks trips to New York, visits to an old-school record shop to purchase vinyl albums and typing on an actual typewriter - the story of Nina and Darius clearly gets played out. While it may all sound tiring and pretentious, it isn't.
Thanks to the directing of Theodore Witcher, it is not pretense at all. After all, this is how many young adults have designed and customized their lives, by embracing and shaping the American dream and all of its offerings to make a good life for themselves. And here lays the problem, Love Jones is like an architectural project rather a film, encapsulating Nina and Darius' love story rather than unfolding it. Their environments seems a bit unfamiliar to them. These are intelligent worldly people acting like adults in a professional world but their actions are a cross between a classic hollywood movie and a high school romance.
When I first saw Love Jones, I was the only person who was underwhelmed, so this time I watched with fresh eyes and an open mind. Most of the things I noticed the first time around still resonated like Lorenz Tate looked very young. While Tate definitely brought Darius to life fully, I still felt like Madd Dogg, his Menace II Society character, was still there - the gesturing and delivery. Nia Long was perfect. She was desirable, beautiful, human and wanting it all - love and a career without talking about it or singling one or the other out. Very well written and acted female role. After watching this time around, I wonder why Nia Long did not scoop Halle Berry? She really is lovely.
Love Jones is a movie that may be too perfect for its own good. Watching it is like looking a jigsaw puzzle with all of the pieces neatly laid out in front of you but not yet connected. Right from the start, you see where they go, how it will work and what is next -- the big picture. But where is no pay off? I don't even care if they get together or what the end is. This is no love jones - it is a crush. An adult crush complicated by all of the nice things and stuff that make up grown up life.
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