Video review: "The Photograph"

You probably missed “The Photograph,” as it dropped in theaters in mid-February in The Before Time. It stars Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield, respectable young African-American actors but not exactly household names. It’s got some nice performances and a slow-burn form of storytelling that works well for home viewing.

The structure of this romantic drama reminded me a lot of “The Notebook,” in that it’s a time-shifting story in which we’re not entirely sure of how the various characters and stories will synch up. Writer/director Stella Meghie has a good nose for pacing and teasing out the important story elements.

Stanfield plays Michael, an ambitious journalist for a New York magazine whose life is in a state of flux. He recently had a bad breakup and is considering ditching everything for a new job in London. While chasing an unrelated story in New Orleans, he interviews an old fisherman, Isaac (the always-terrific Rob Morgan), sees a photograph by well-known photographer who recently passed away, and eventually the trail leads to her daughter, Mae (Rae).

She’s at her own precarious waypoint in life, assistant curator of a Big Apple museum. The two find an instant connection, but of course have to slow-dance around their feelings. They’re wounded people who don’t want to get hurt again, so they resist the pull they both feel.

This tale is told in parallel with Mae’s mother as a young woman (Chante Adams) and her lover (Y’lan Noel). We sense that the wayback romance will somehow link up with the new one, but strangely we don’t find ourselves in a hurry to get to the revelation.

Stanfield and Rae are serious eye candy as a couple, and there’s an almost film noir-ish way Meghie shoots them. “The Photograph” is a grown-up movie that views love as a two-edged sword that holds as much potential for pain and regret as joy.

Bonus features are nice but not terribly expansive.

There’s a making-of documentary featuring interviews with the key cast and crew; “Culture in Film,” a featurette on the importance of representation in the film industry in front of and behind the camera; and “The Film Through Photographs,” which looks at how the movie uses still images to delve into its narrative and characters.

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Review: "The Photograph"

I've been a fan of LaKeith Stanfield since I saw him in his first movie, "Short Term 12." I think he's one of the finest young actors working in film today, though he's mostly had small parts in big films or big parts in small films. Most people would probably recognize him as the crazy neighbor in "Get Out."

I'm less familiar with Issa Rae, other than I thought she was about the only good thing going on in last year's execrable "Little." She has natural screen presence and solid comedic timing.

So I was excited to see them together in a romantic drama, "The Photograph." It's a fairly standard new-love sort of story, in which two wounded people meet, fall in love and then contend with challenges to their young relationship.

But writer/director Stella Meghie lends the story a certain kind of slow-burn soulfulness. We spend a lot of time in extreme close-up shots with this couple, almost like we're being enveloped in their embrace.

He plays Michael Block, a writer for the fictional Republic magazine. It's one of those quasi-intellectual New York publications where reporters apparently work on a single story for a couple of months. He recently broke up with his girlfriend, Tessa (never seen), and is contemplating a move to work for the Associated Press in London.

She is Mae, the daughter of a semi-famous photographer, Christina Eames, who has just died. She's the assistant curator for a museum in Queens that apparently pays well enough for her to afford a lavish, sprawling penthouse apartment in the Big Apple.

Mae's relationship with her mom was strained by her dedication to work, and is making her way through a long letter her mother left for her -- with another one she's supposed to give to her father.

They connect through the way every journalist finds love in the movies: by sleeping with a source. While interviewing a fisherman in New Orleans, Isaac (Rob Morgan), Michael comes across photographs by Christina, is intrigued by them and looks up Mae, who is organizing an exhibit of her mother's work.

He asks her out, and things go from there -- including a rendezvous in Louisiana that kicks things into another gear.

(Seriously, Hollywood: having sex with your sources is kind of a big no-no in journalism. Like, end-your-career kinda stuff.)

The story slips back and forth in time, as we witness the new romance begin to bloom and watch as an old one between Isaac and Christina founders. They are played in the flashback sequences by Y'lan Noel and Chante Adams, respectively, and their onscreen chemistry is just electric.

Lil Rel Howery plays Kyle, Michael's older brother, who offers ribbing advice and an example (cautionary tale?) of stable family life. Kelvin Harrison Jr. is Andy, a younger colleague of Michael's who looks up to him, and Chelsea Peretti plays Sara, their passive-aggressive boss.

Mae and Michael are both in the process of discovering things about themselves, and about each other. Mae wonders if she will have the same trouble maintaining deep relationships her mom did. Michael questions if he's capable of staying in one place and sinking down roots.

Some may find it an odd comparison, but tonally this movie reminded me a lot of "The Notebook," and not just because of the Southern setting. It's a movie about the joy of falling in love but also leavened with a sense of regret and loss. We hope good things will happen to these people, knowing that hearts break at least as often as they leap.

At the center is Stanfield and Rae. They're both beautiful in an offbeat sort of way, him with his slouching charm and her with a smile that could easily turn into a frown or a boisterous laugh. We enjoy just sitting back and watching them go.

"The Photograph" isn't the fastest-paced romance, but sometimes it pays to slow down and just bask in the moment.

Review: "Brittany Runs a Marathon"

Brittany Forgler is 28 years old, 5-feet-6-inches tall and weighs 197 pounds. With a Body Mass Index of over 30, this makes her technically obese, though she is shocked and offended when her doctor uses that word.

I like it when movies deal in specificity. One of the things that drives me nuts is when film characters are maddeningly vague about important stuff. Like they'll say they're poor, but don't say how little they make.

"Brittany Runs a Marathon" doesn't get into its protagonist's finances, but it does deal in absolutes when it comes to the numbers on her scale.

She's played by Jillian Bell, a wonderful actress you've probably seen in supporting roles in a lot of popular movies. Usually she plays the heroine's wingwoman or the sardonic sister. Here she gets to shine in a funny but meaty leading role about a woman who decides to make a change in her body and her mind by taking up running.

This is not a movie about a fat person who got thin and it turned their life around. Rather, it's the story of a woman who has trouble letting people in, and eating and partying too much are just a symptom of her trying to fit in.

Brittany starts jogging, simply because it's the cheapest and easiest form of exercise there is. Plus, one of her neighbors, Catherine (Michaela Watkins), is a seasoned runner and it seems like the most obvious thing. Brittany and her roommate, Gretchen (Alice Lee), resent Catherine because she has a swanky penthouse in Manhattan and is just using their building in the outer boroughs as a photography studio.

But "Brittany," written and directed by Paul Downs Colaizzo, isn't content to leave people as their surface presentation would indicate. Everyone has layers and complexities, and Catherine is no exception. Running brings them together, though its just the beginning of a complicated relationship.

Brittany has one of those busy New York City lives that seems like a lot of fun on the outside but is crushingly lonely and depressing when they're not "turned on." She has a low-level job at a local theater, buys drinks for half the bar but has never had a meaningful relationship.

Brittany and Gretchen get along, but Gretchen is one of those "influencers" whose job seems to revolve around looking pretty and chronicling her awesome life. When Brittany starts to lose weight and get her act together, it sets off friction because it disrupts the power status they had both assumed for the relationship.

"You may keep the weight off but you will always be a fat girl. It's just who you are," Gretchen snaps.

Brittany takes a second job taking care of the houses and dogs of rich people when they're traveling, and encounters Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar), a loser who takes the night shift but has actually turned it into a live-in gig. He's a typical movie man-child, in his 30s but still acting like a stupid teen, using the swanky abode to get hot dates.

They immediately clash, but according to the rules of the romantic comedy they must eventually fall for each other. Seth (Micah Stock), the good-natured gay man who becomes the running friend of Brittany and Catherine, even cheekily predicts this will happen.

Things go from there. The pounds slide off and Brittany starts to feel happy and confident, and makes plan to run in the next NYC Marathon. (Bell wears padding and makeup in the early going to make her seem heavier.) She begins to assert herself and nice things start to happen. Men who had previously ignored her pay attention and hold the subway door.

But...

As I said, Colaizzo -- who wrote the movie based on a real-life friend -- refuses to deal in absolutes or simple answers. Without giving anything away, suffice it to say that Brittany's journey takes a few detours and backsteps.

This is a good and interesting movie. It straddles the genres of romance, comedy, drama and chick flick without worrying about fitting into any one slot. Bell is marvelous, and we find ourselves rooting for Brittany even when we know she's not always the nicest person or good at self-care.

The numbers on a scale can be useful, but they do not define us. What initially seems like a story about losing weight becomes something heftier and more human.

P.S.: Body Mass Index, or BMI, is pseudo-science horseshit, btw. It's a crude height-to-weight ratio that lumps in professional athletes with buffet-line kings. Did you know that America's "fat crisis" actually became a thing when the BMI threshold was suddenly changed in 1998, tossing 30 million "healthy" people into the "overweight" category? It doesn't even differentiate between men and women, or old and young. I could go on. I'll leave with my favorite anecdote about BMI: do you remember when Matthew McConaughey got grotesquely thin for "Dallas Buyers Club, resembling a fleshy, shambling scarecrow? According to BMI, he still fell in the "Normal" weight range.)

Review: "Uncle Drew"

The idea for “Uncle Drew” came from a television commercial. You’ve seen those ads where NBA players (or athletes from other sports) dress up as old men, challenge young studs to a game, generating much ridicule, and then proceed to blow them off the court? Here’s an hour-and-three-quarters of that.

You may be appalled, but we’ve had movies adapted out of video games and theme park rides, so why not a clever bit of commercial video? I mean, those Neanderthals wearing business suits got a whole TV show.

Despite, or perhaps because of its progeny, it turns out that “Uncle Drew” is a big bag of yucks. Kyrie Irving of the Boston Celtics plays the titular character, a legend of the New York City blacktop game who suddenly disappeared 50 years ago right before the finals of the legendary Rucker Park tournament. Now he’s back to bring love to the game, and maybe teach a few life lessons along the way.

“Play the game the right way, and it fixes everything,” he practically purrs.

Lil Rel Howery is the ostensible main character, a pudgy little man named Dax who coaches the team. His own hoop dreams were shattered years ago when he had his game-winning shot blocked by Mookie (Nick Kroll), a taunting jagoff who’s white to boot. In the opening minutes Mookie steals his star player, Casper (Aaron Gordon) and his girlfriend, Jess (Tiffany Haddish), an annoying harpy who wasn’t really much of a loss.

The elders at the corner barbershop (JB Smoove and Mike Epps chief among them) urge Dax to seek out Uncle Drew, who’s more ghost than man these days. But he manages to track Drew down, see that his skills haven’t diminished much even at age seventy-something, and talks him into rounding up his old teammates for one last go.

In point of fact, Dax barely has to make his pitch before Drew has agreed, so we sense he’s just been waiting for this chance at redemption.

The middle part of the movie is the familiar “putting the band back together” bit, as we encounter old pals in their far-flung situations and sign them up. They cruise around in Drew’s ‘70s-era van, complete with shag carpeting and a bench area in the back he refers to as “the Boom-Boom Room.”

Given his reputation with the ladies, it’s an operational, rather than aspirational term.

Old rivalries are revived, too, especially with Big Fella (Shaquille O’Neal) -- that’s actually the only name he’s ever given -- a mammoth man who now teaches martial arts to kid and wears a ridiculous salt-and-pepper fu manchu goatee and vaguely Wolverine-esque afro. Shaq is an entertaining presence, and even pokes fun at his earlier film roles.

Chris Webber is Preach, who’s now a bent-over reverend with a gravely growl and a bad prostate. Reggie Miller plays Lights, a shooter who’s gone blind but still believes every shot is going to be a swish. Lisa Leslie is Betty Lou, Preach’s cantankerous wife who doesn’t like him running off, and gives chase. She’s suspiciously tall for a reverend’s wife.

The age makeup they all wear varies in credibility. Shaq and Reggie look pretty much the same as they normally do, though they’re closer in age to the fictional Drew than the actual Kyrie. It took me a long time to place Webber as Preach. Best of all is Nate Robinson as Boots, who I actually took to be some 1970s NBA star at first.

Boots hasn’t spoken or stepped out of his wheelchair in a year, but this is the sort of movie with convenient miracles in the offing. Erica Ash plays Boots’ very cute and available granddaughter.

Directed by Charles Stone III (“Drumline”) from a script by Jay Longino, “Uncle Drew” boasts heaping helpings of laughs and dazzling court moves. The talkie scenes drag, and Irving as Drew only seems to have one speed: raspy wisdom interspersed with calling whoever he’s talking to “youngblood.”

The simple fact is I enjoyed spending time with these characters. It’s ridiculous to think that men who’ve seen three-quarters of a century can break ankles with crossovers or dunk like Dr. J. But then it’s hard to believe they could make a whole film out of a TV commercial and actually have it turn out as good as this.

Plus, this is the movie in which we get to see the glory that is Shaq’s ass. Wait, let’s hashtag that: #Shaqass. I think each cheek is bigger than Danny DeVito.