Sylvie (Tessa Thompson) is a young dreaming ambitious black woman who loves her father, listens to her mother and not only dreams, but follows through on a life where she is the captain of her destiny. So while living firmly within the codes, morals and conventions of her time, she still clearly sets herself as apart from it which is a wonderful argument against the idea that you cannot tell stories that take place in a certain time without planting the characters in all the worst and most reductive attitudes and rituals of that time. I digress, Sylvie meets a young similarly ambitious Robert (Nmandi Asumongha ) who spots her from outside the window with a help wanted sign, and instantly sees her. There is no meet-cute, no unnecessary or forced banter as we might see in something like the year's earlier black romantic offering “The Photograph”, just as organic a setting and a meeting of two people as a film can offer. Subsequently the first meeting in which they begin to fall for each other is created by a locked door. Which I love because don’t we all meet or have locked doors that can either trap us in our ways, or lead us to our love if opened? It’s also a better and more interesting stand in for the tired cliché of an elevator that gets stuck. This feels like something that could actually happen and not like another version of a plot device used to force two people who may not have their own volition allowed themselves to be in one room for this amount of time getting to know each other. This budding love of course is not without complications as no love story is, and we have been told earlier that Sylvie is actually engaged, but we're all pretty aware pretty soon that Sophie's real love is Robert. This engagement is not easily dismissed, not for Sylvie or the audience. It is a real complication with real consequences and real stakes, as it deals with a dilemma that’s real for many of us in this capitalist society, marry for love or for reality, balance, help, status. In this world neither is funny or easily dismissed. The film understands this pish and pull, and doesn’t pit these two against each other as much as show us the evolution of Sylvie’s decision. Sylvie’s “Love” takes its time both with Sylvie’s and Robert's relationship and with the eventual resolution of the agreed-upon marriage. The toughest part of this movie and what makes it so great for me, is that there is no real villain here. Husband Lacey is not the worst kind of man, but he is not the best either. He's not something out of a Tyler Perry movie, a villainous cheater, or an abuser, he's not sitting on his woman, he's just your average guy with probably the average moral standing of a man from his era. No, the True Villain if there is a villain or such a thing in this film, it is life, and just as life gets in the way in this film in the famous words of Dr. Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park - life finds a way - to continually bring these two back into each other's arms.
