Love Jones

Chicago. Darius writes poetry and reads at a club. One night he sees Nina; she is a photographer and has come with friends. He goes on stage and reads a poem looking straight at her. Then they talk. The relationship starts fast. Neither wants it to be serious and they tell each other so. Then Nina's former fiancé comes back and she leaves the city. Months later she returns. Theodore Witcher writes and directs. Larenz Tate plays Darius and Nia Long plays Nina. It is the director's first feature. The film was shown at Sundance and won an audience award. It stands outside the narratives of the time in American cinema that placed black characters on ground of crime or poverty; it takes place among middle class artists, and that is what it is most cited for. The music is inside the narrative; jazz and blues recordings play within the scenes and the album was a success in its own right. The poetry is part of the narrative and the texts were written for the film. The matter it works at is refusing to name a relationship; both characters reject the definition and that becomes the problem itself. Its limit is structure; the separation and return follow the shape of the genre. Who it is for: viewers who like nineties American romantic drama and films grounded in music. Who it is not for: the plot is familiar, the characters explain themselves too much, and the ending is what you expect.