STUDYING CHEMISTRY 101
Story of star-crossed lovers is set against glorious soundtrack packed with oldies
Simple and bittersweet, Sylvie's Love wraps your basic starcrossed lovers story in a patina of age — it takes place in 1962 New York — and some of the glorious early rock music that comes along with it.
The oldies-packed soundtrack includes performances by
The Drifters, Louis Armstrong, Sam Cooke, Bill Haley, Martha Reeves, Doris Day and more.
It makes sense, because one half of the romantic equation in writer-director Eugene Ashe's drama is saxophonist Robert Holloway, played by Nnamdi Asomugha. And the woman of his dreams is Sylvie (Tessa Thompson). They first meet each other in 1957 in a record store, where he subsequently gets a part-time job.
Sylvie is already engaged to a soldier fighting overseas, but chemistry can't be denied. When Robert gets a gig in Paris and has to go, Sylvie has just found out she's pregnant. Five years later finds her married with a daughter, and bumping into a newly returned Robert outside a concert hall. And — well, not only can chemistry not be denied, it doesn't cool even after five years apart.
Ashe's screenplay is a busy one, layering the romance with a lot of timely subplots around women's rights and workplace equality (race, sex, you name it) and the burgeoning civil rights movement.
It's all a bit sanitized, but it's not enough to sink the appeal of Sylvie's Love, which goes far on the performances (and did I mention their chemistry?) of its two leads. And you may be able to figure out where the movie is going before it gets there itself, but isn't that how it is with an old, favourite song?