But classy, engaging film with a Black cast lacks depth
The story they inhabit isn’t particularly original, but the protagonists generate more than enough electricity to make up for that lack, along with other shortcomings, in “Sylvie’s Love,” streaming on Amazon Prime. Filmmaker Eugene Ashe has delivered a jazzy, swooning re-creation of the big-screen melodramas of the 1950s and 1960s, with a necessary revision. Bringing to mind the mid-20th-century films of Douglas Sirk and the “women’s pictures” of decades prior, Ashe’s movie contains a lush Technicolor look, a heated melodramatic plot and a strong heroine. What’s different is that Ashe (“Homecoming”) has addressed the exclusions of the past by giving the movie Black primary characters. Set mostly in New York City, from 1957 into the 1960s, the film features Tessa Thompson as Sylvie, a young woman who works at a Harlem record store owed by her father (Lance Reddick) and dreams of a career as a producer in the world of television. Sylvie and talented jazz saxophonist Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha) share a meet-cute moment, and, with Sylvie’s fiance, Lacy (Alano Miller), conveniently out of the picture for a spell, Sylvie and Robert flirt and bond over music. Also convenient is the “help wanted” sign in the store window. Robert gets himself hired, so that he can be near Sylvie. Love blossoms between the pair, of course. It’s a situation that Sylvie’s class-conscious etiquette-instructor mother (Erica Gimpel), who wants Sophie to marry the wealthier Lacy, opposes.
