| New Line Cinema | Release Date: March 14, 1997 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
17
Mixed:
4
Negative:
1
|
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Critic Reviews
Perhaps the most affecting thing about the urban romance love jones is that much of what it shows is so refreshingly ordinary. [14 Mar 1997, p.10]
Love jones may be the first to show black 20somethings simply going about their lives - searching for love, falling in love and messing up love without their ethnicity being an issue. [14 Mar 1997, p.54]
At times Witcher leans too heavily on the familiar, with the ups and downs
of the last half hour growing repetitive and wearisome. But his accomplishment
is nonetheless impressive. [14 Mar 1997, p.A]
Many love stories contrive to get their characters together at the end. This one contrives, not to keep them apart, but to bring them to a bittersweet awareness that is above simple love. Some audience members would probably prefer a romantic embrace in the sunset, as the music swells. But "Love Jones'' is too smart for that.
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It's funky and funny, not just sleek, riding witty repartee that makes it seem an extension of the fizzy, romantic comedies of the '30s (as well as the Harlem Renaissance, invoked by its poetry club scenes). [14 Mar 1977, p.C1]
Nothing of much surprise happens and nearly everybody will feel twinges of the familiar. It's very specific, but also universal in the gentle way it watches two people who are attracted to each other, and what they do about it. [14 Mar 1997]
Witcher makes a remarkably confident filmmaking debut, eliciting excellent performances from his leads and underscoring their romance with a sound track that flavors, rather than overwhelms, the story. [14 Mar 1997, p.03]
The story is thin, but it's fun to spend time with more likable African-American characters than most Hollywood movies ever put under the spotlight. [21 Mar 1997, p.13]
For the most part, it's simply a pleasure to watch a smoothly made and underplayed film about attractive, nice people without a hint of violence on their minds. [25 Apr 1997, p.D8]
Writer-director Theodore Witcher fills his debut with jazz-cool atmosphere. He's got a fresh-faced but mature cast: Nia Long, Larenz Tate, Isaiah Washington. But once he's staked out the territory, he falls back into the most conventional kind of storytelling. [14 Mar 1997, p.4E]
Happily, the two leads click throughout in a movie that's just good enough to engender curiosity over filmmaker Witcher's follow-up effort. [14 Mar 1997]
There are some effective group scenes with Darius and Nina and their friends, but Witcher's dialogue and direction more often show the craft than the naturalism he's after. [14 Mar 1997, p.F1]
What this film desperately needed was another element in the script, something besides love and sex. Maybe something about art, something that put the lovers on the same team and back into those appealing bohemian clubs. As it stands, love jones is a smart setting in search of a story.
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