Hey folks, Harry here with Particle Man's look at LOVE & BASKETBALL... I saw this trailer Sunday night when I took the 'most fabulous woman in the universe' and Tom Joad to see PITCH BLACK. The trailer looked pretty good actually... and sense Omar Epps was the single good thing about that dreadful ball of shit (aka MOD SQUAD) I'll give it a chance, and from what Particle Man says... It's a winner...
I think we're onto something here. New Line has been running screenings of what they call a "copy of a rough cut" (ouch!) of LOVE & BASKETBALL, which means that the timing (color balance) wasn't locked in yet and they may or may not have been using a temp track. All of which -- giving the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt -- would usually keep me from commenting... except that what's on the screen is already so _good_ that I don't mind breaking the code of silence in this case.
Take that title literally -- this is all about love in terms of basketball and basketball in terms of love. We follow two, young players, Quincy McCall (Omar Epps) and Monica Wright (Sanaa Lathan) -- neighbors from childhood -- as they attempt to define themselves via the game and find their assumptions and idealism challenged by realities both on and off the court. For Q, it's a struggle both to live up to the expectations of his father (Dennis Haysbert), a star player in NBA, and to emerge from his shadow. For Monica, it's being able to trim her own burning ambition enough to cope with the frustrations and inequities both of team play and of a world in which women's teams are held in lesser regard than their male counterparts. For both, it's facing up to the fact that, in moving into college -- where the film spends the bulk of its time -- they are not only beginning the big move beyond their childhoods, but are beginning to realize the extent to which their lives are inextricably intertwined.
If the film has any problem, it's that there are plays along the way that you can call almost from the start. Two things make this far less a problem than would be normal: one is the assured work of first-time director Gina Prince-Bythewood, whose style is nicely unobtrusive yet never less than engaging -- it keeps you in the moment when the plot line falters; the other is the almost flawless cast, led up with strong performances by both leads (and if Epps finally has his break-out role here, Sanaa Lathan is downright history-making -- you can _feel_ Monica's intensity, share every emotional up and down she experiences. Somebody give this woman a gold statue and get her in another lead role, _quick_). The plot-points may not be wholly original, yet the combination of talents sells the reality -- you believe what these people go through. More important, you root for them, both on the court and off, and share their victories and defeats in an almost visceral way. That's more involvement than I've been getting from seasoned directors of late, and makes me hope that in Ms. Prince-Bythewood we may have found an important new voice in film.
