Frank (Darrell Britt-Gibson) is a struggling actor based in LA. He bemoans the fact that the only roles offered to him, owing to the color of his skin, are that of a drug dealer and is pained to see a terrace full of actors that look just like him when he walks out. He’s quick to make and lose friends, particularly women. His agent (D’Arcy Carden) tries to force him into hobnobbing with the industry executives that he has a clear disdain towards, as dancing with snakes just is not for him. 2024
Directed by: Nate Edwards
Written by: Darrell Britt-Gibson
Darrell Britt-Gibson, Arsema Thomas
Mali (Arsema Thomas) is a winning basketball agent who also has cancer. She has parents who call her every other hour asking when she is getting better, there’s a junior agent (Taissa Farmiga) who believes and looks up to Mali but is the opposite in terms of confidence, and she’s got a boss who does not want to divert her attention elsewhere. Mali comes across as exceptionally intelligent- she narrates how her client got the greatest deal in the most appropriate city, and how as a small child she wanted to be an astrophysicist. She likewise does not like the company of those who know her illness.
Mali’s ego and self-assurance are pretty much unbreakable and that makes her an unlikely candidate for Frank’s advances, it does however, most definitely please her that he is oblivious to the fact that she is a cancer patient.
Darrell Britt-Gibson has been around for a long time, but it was not until the Fear Street trilogy that he played a relatively stereotypical black character who was comfortably able to get typecast while going against the type that I noticed him. And now we have she taught love, with him now being interested in getting into writing too. There is a saying that goes “If you don’t see it, you create it” right? That is what I feel is happening here. There is a great weight on the characterization and the depth of the progressive story. We have an uncommon story where two really good characters with a lot of depth are placed in an uncommon genre. With that is able to address the issue of black people being portrayed or not portrayed in the current cultural context which is a recurring topic of this movie.
In the beginning, the characters are still quite sharp and new, while the film now has a more nuanced and complicated, more mature feel to it. However, the issue lies with the genre these characters inhabit. One could say that it is a love story, but at the very center, there is a woman dying from cancer. It is a story that we have already witnessed on multiple occasions, and while these characters are traditional, and while we do have the grace of Britt-Gibson’s imagination, there are simply too few to make a positive impact. This sadly, makes the picture tedious and unremarkable.
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