A Journal for Jordan

Before being sent to Iraq, Sergeant Charles Monroe King starts keeping a notebook for his unborn son: how to behave, what not to do, what his father wants of him. The man is killed in 2006 and the notebook remains. The film proceeds through the account of the boy's mother, Dana, moving between two times: the beginning of their relationship and the present in which the notebook is read. Denzel Washington adapted Dana Canedy's own book; Canedy is a journalist and the person these events happened to. Michael B. Jordan leads. This is not a war film but the story of those left behind, and it aims openly at feeling. That the notebook is real is its strongest quality; its weakest is how smoothly the relationship sections proceed. Who it is for: viewers who like melodrama based on real events. Who it is not for: anyone wanting restraint.