National Post (National Edition)
Studying Chemistry 101
Cast: Tessa Thompson,
Nnamdi Asomugha Director: Eugene Ashe
Duration: 1 h 54 m Available: Amazon Prime
Simple and bittersweet, Sylvie's Love wraps your basic star-crossed 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 — Sylvie all but falls into a job as assistant to a Black television producer, and then finds herself promoted into the same role.
And there are times when the bumps on her road to
happiness feel contrived rather than organic.
But these are 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? ΠΠΠ