Watching The Inkwell invokes the same type of feeling as that first warm ray of sunlight on your face out from the shade of a tree. There is an ease that pervades the viewing experience and that has a lot to do with director Matty Rich's soft touch behind the camera, Ceci’s costume design, and Terence Blanchard’s score. Even more than that it feels like a reminder, of simpler times. If at times the movie feels like an extended sitcom, I believe that is a part of its charm. Rich's first feature film "Straight outta Brooklyn" was rougher in almost every single way, from its gritty setting in the inner cities of New York, to its frank depiction of aimless black youth and minimal production value. Earnest, and compelling, “Straight Out of Brooklyn” covered similar though not altogether the same ground as the films that would come out that same year and subsequently, like Boyz in the Hood, and Menace to Society. But “The Inkwell” represented an almost complete pivot, and yet the roughness, the feeling of something that doesn’t aim for perfection is still there. The Inkwell is warm, touching, sensitive, and funny. The production value is represented not in sleek camera angles and upscale violence, but in outstanding costume design and attention to the details of the era. It veers off the beaten path and the results aren’t always great, but they are almost always interesting. Some contemporary reviews said the film dragged, and from a technical aspect it's not an unreasonable find, but it’s not curious either. I found commentary, heart, and depth even in those uneven spots, like those between a game Morris Chestnut, and A.J. Johnson as a couple teetering on divorce themselves due to Chestnut’s philandering ways, and between Drew’s own parents, and Brenda’s family - (especially a scene involving a tennis match that goes wrong) incredibly endearing, political, and humorous. This filmnis not just to borrow a phrase from Jim Kelly’s Williams in “Enter the Dragon” - “Too busy looking good to be bothered with its defeats. It feels good, and it feels good because of the love put in it, which permeates every aspect from cinematography to the casting and by extension the performances. Watching these sterling, delightful, vibrant performances from actors whose opportunities to inhabit characters such as these were few and far between was, and is a joy unto itself that pays off in different ways every time I watch. Joe Morton bristles with his patent expository anger as a lost revolutionary named “Kenny” who had been left behind in a movement that no longer had the same motor, death surrounded him and it still does as represented in his eyes and his resentment of his own grief. Suzanne Douglas's Brenda, a woman unseen and under acknowledged by her mother, her sister, and of course her husband is an anchor to the films heart. Douglass brings a toughness similar to that of a reed in the wind, there is bending but no breakage, she is under explorered, but well understood. The actress has a similar skill-set to Angela Bassett, and like most of this cast was criminally under used in her career. Larenz Tate heartwarmingly embodies a young black male trying to find his place in a world where he doesn't identify with the ready made pockets of existence that exists for black people and in this case black men. Tate made quite the pivot here as an actor himself, showing off an impressive range coming from his explosive, and menacing role as O-Dawg in Menace to Society. Everything from his gait, to his beats in delivery morphs to code the audience to the vast chasm between experience that exist between the two characters. Turning that same kinetic energy on its head from terror to endearment….