Jazz-infused escape a holiday treat
Sylvie’s Love (TBC, 114 mins) Directed by Eugene Ashe Reviewed by James Croot ★★★★
Fans of movies like Far From Heaven, If Beale Street Could Talk and theworks of Douglas Sirk, Amazon Prime Video has a seasonal treat for you.
Almost seven years in the making, Sylvie’s Love is an achingly romantic, sumptuously staged mid20th century drama featuring a fabulous performance from Thor: Ragnarok’s breakout star Tessa Thompson.
She plays Sylvie Johnson, a youngwoman who is torn between her obligations and affections towards two men, while trying to carve out an independent life for herself.
When we firstmeet her (chronologically, at least), Sylvie is working in her father’s record store. While he laments her preference forwatching TV rather than exploring the summer sights of their Harlem neighbourhood, he knows that she’s hamstrung waiting for her fiance Lacy (Alano Miller) to return home from the war in Korea.
It’s a tie that aspiring jazz musician Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha) initially is unaware of, as he attempts to woo the woman he became entranced by, just by looking through the shop window.
Managing to persuade Sylvie’s father to take him on as part-time help, Robert introduces her to his world. ‘‘You gonna turn down a dance with the next John Coltrane?’’ he entreats her.
Butwhile managing to earn a goodnight kiss from their ‘‘rather date-like’’ evening out, Sylvie also reveals how her betrothed is from a prominent family, something that’s also hammered home to her the next day by her etiquette schoolrunning mother, when she overhears Sylvie talk about Robert’s talent with a sax.
‘‘A young lady should never give gushing praise to a youngman, especially one beneath her station. It might give off the wrong impression.’’
However, when she persuades him that the last evening’s endwas ‘‘just amomentary lapse in judgment’’, he counters that ‘‘life’s too short to waste time on things you don’t absolutely love’’, before asking if she’ll join him on his quartet’s residency in Paris.
Writer-director EugeneAshe’s (2012 drama Homecoming) tale really lets its soundtrack do a lot of the talking. The plethora of classic cuts, showcasing everyone from
Sam Cooke to Doris Day and The Drifters, adds significantly to the film’s aesthetic andmood, while the production design and costumes are first-rate.
There’s also a freshness and verve about this particular love triangle, with viewers likely to feel as genuinely torn as Sylvie about the path she should choose. That we feel that way is definitely down to the terrific turn from Thompson and her supporting men.
Asomugha (the little-seen Crown Heights) exudes confidence and circumspection, and Miller (TV’s Underground) isn’t your typical flawed, inflexible third wheel.
Thompson’s Sylvie though, is very much her own woman and some of the best scenes involve her navigating a job as an assistant on a Julia Child-esque cooking show and barely controlling her rage at the casual bigotedness of Lacy’s employers.
Amovie filled withmemorable moments and evocative images large and small, Sylvie’s Love might be just the escape you need at this crazy time of year.