A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick, in fact, even though it did receive some solid reviews, I almost skipped it. However, after I saw ‘One Battle After Another’ this weekend, I became instantly so fascinated by Teyana Taylor and I had to watch this movie with her breakthrough performance, especially since it was leaving Netflix the very same day. Well, she didn’t disappoint me, that’s for sure. Indeed, she was again so charismatic but, above all, so convincing. For this movie, she had to portray the same woman over 10 years and, while you can argue that the character might have been similar to her at the beginning of the movie, she really evolved through everything that happened to her resulting in a very strong and genuine performance. A.V. Rockwell should also be praised and it was very bold for her directorial debut to make a film taking place in New York during such a specific time period (from the mid 90’s to the mid 00’s). Of course, since I didn’t live in New York at the time, I can’t testify for sure that she did a great job but it did look and sound really convincing and it is obvious that she really made an effort. Concerning the story, well, even though I didn’t learn anything really new, it was still fairly heartbreaking and it displayed that, if you are born on the wrong side of the tracks, it’s probable that you won’t never get a really fair shot in life, in spite of all your efforts. I have to admit that it didn’t expect the twist ending and it’s interesting that my first reaction was to think that she was some kind of psycho child kidnapper. Of course, it wasn’t the case and, within a few mins, I understood that she didn’t ‘steal’ this kid from anyone. Indeed, at the time, nobody cared for him at all and she decided to make sure he was okay, even if she barely could take care of herself in the first place which was such a noble gesture. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was missing something to really become a masterpiece, it was still a really solid directorial debut and it is definitely worth a look. 

7/10