Well, Peter Pan's girlfriend Wendy just got back from seeing WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE, the new Vivica Fox, Halle Berry and Lela Rochon flick. Remember this is a test screening, and the first one that I have heard of on the flick. Hold your opinion till ya see it, but as for now here's what we know... as told by Wendy....
I'm a first time spy reporting in from Southern California, where last night I used my feminine wiles and powers of manipulation to attend a test screening at the United Artists Marketplace in Pasadena, CA. Call me Wendy Kroy.
The movie is "Why Do Fools Fall In Love", a Warner Bros release starring Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox, Lela Rochon and Larenz Tate. Director Gregory Nava ("Mi Familia", "Selena") was on hand for the screening.
The movie could best be described as an ensemble drama with music, along the lines of "What's Love Got To Do With It" and "That Thing You Do(!)", this one focusing on late '50s/ early '60s R&B singer Frankie Lymon (Tate, the great young actor from "Dead Presidents" and "Love Jones"). Surprisingly, the movie focuses on three women who convene on the courts in 1986 to claim their share of Lymon's estate. They all claim to have been married to Lymon at the time of his heroin overdose death. The wives are played by Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox and Lela Rochon.
Berry is a torch singing siren, Fox is a sassy shoplifter/ex-con and Rochon is a sweethearted school teacher who prays before each meal. Early on, the movie promises to be a "Rashomon" set to do-wop and R&B music. Each woman remembers Lymon in a different way, which we see in flashbacks. Each has the thing they love most destroyed by him. Most of your readers will by now recognize this as the tell-tell sign of a "chick flick".
The positives here are the performances, almost all of them top-drawer. Larenz Tate was charming and believable playing a sort of mystery man, I wanted to jump through the screen and kiss him. Lela Rochon was awesome, she's finally gotten a good role in a good film after she lit up "Waiting To Exhale", she's sexy and funny. Paul Mazursky plays a sleazy record producer, after "2 Days In The Valley" he seems to have found a good second career playing dishevled industry types. Little Richard flies in to play himself for two scenes, bringing everything to a halt. He provides as much laughter for the audience as he does a distraction to the film.
The movie comments on the way pop artists were almost universally ripped off by producers in the '50s and '60s. The music numbers were very well-done. Young versions of Little Richard, The Kinks, The Platters and Redd Foxx are portrayed on the sidelines in several of the '60s scenes. The filmmakers went through the trouble of recreating that time and scene realistically, complete with groupies and drug thugs. The groovy dance show "Hullabuloo" is recreated very well, and an earlier scene where a White chick gets the audacity to dance with Lymon on live TV is good.
Acting wise, Vivica A. Fox blew the lid off this film. Early on in her prison scenes, she inches up alongside the careers of Jada Pinkett and Halle Berry, but by the end, she eclipses both of those actresses. I think Berry will be awarded the lead in this movie, but Fox is by far the better actress, the one the audience loved and was with.
That said, this movie is barely above average. The screening was packed by people ready to have a good time, but the material just didn't give them much to laugh about, care about or jump out of their seats about. "What's Love Got To Do With It" was the superior movie. You felt for Tina Turner/Angela Bassett. That could have been me up on the screen. Here, Frankie Lymon is pretty much a rat bastard who OD'd, and his wives end up going after his estate like dogs. I don't think movies have to uplift us, but neither myself or many of the people I sat around were into this film on an emotional level.
The filmmakers should have taken advantage of the "Rashmon" angle. I waited an hour until they finally showed a scene from a different point of view. The few films that have used this structure, like "Courage Under Fire", were much more intriguing and suspenseful.
Again, Halle Berry gets blown off the screen by Vivica A. Fox, but the film is a good ensemble piece, better made and more intelligent than last year's hit "Soul Food". I think if the filmmakers focus on the ensemble nature of the film, get the obligatory critic to state "Better than Waiting To Exhale!!!" and get Black and Hispanic audiences out like they did for "Soul Food" and "Selena", they'll be happy all the way around.
Happy Motoring,
Wendy
