A Film as Vague as Its Title

A word of advice to filmmakers who decide to put a writer in their movie: If said writer is a journalist or essayist or critic — any type of writer that works in what we call media — we’re going to have questions. 

For instance, in the Sundance premiere “Love, Brooklyn,” André Holland plays one such writer named Roger. Roger is seemingly assigned to write an article about the evolving nature of Brooklyn. This piece is discussed a lot throughout the film, and yet I still want answers. What type of publication was it for? (Magazine? Newspaper? Literary journal? I don’t know!) Why is his deadline ever-flexible? Why does his editor have him over to discuss it with sparkling wine instead of calling him on the phone? Or, more realistically, sending him a strongly worded email? Is he working on anything else? Where does his income come from? Why isn’t he more stressed about getting paid? 

These all seem like minor quibbles, but they reveal the larger issue at the heart of director Rachael Abigail Holder’s romance written by Paul Zimmerman. The title —”Love, Brooklyn” — is stunningly vague, yes? Well, so is most of the rest of the movie, which charts the relationships between three beautiful Brooklynites played by Holland, Nicole Beharie, and DeWanda Wise. The rom-com is produced by Steven Soderbergh, whose presence is felt when Holland’s character pulls out a bottle of the director’s Singani liquor to sip.

Each of these actors labors hard to bring dimension to their characters that Zimmerman’s screenplay otherwise doesn’t afford them. If this film is supposed to be a tribute to the borough of its title, it’s a strikingly anodyne one, which saps its locations in Fort Greene and its surrounding neighborhoods of personality. This is a shockingly empty depiction of Brooklyn, shot as if the characters live in a postcard where street traffic is minimal and every day is perfectly warm. (Considering the ideal weather conditions, it’s then shocking to see the grounds in Prospect Park around the Picnic House — usually teeming with people — basically abandoned.) 

We first meet Roger as he’s having dinner with Casey (Beharie), a gallerist who we’ll soon understand is his ex. He’s complaining about his assignment — how he wanted to write about Brooklyn evolving but he thinks it’s devolving — and gestures to order another bottle of wine. She declines, citing an early morning. So instead he ends up at the brownstone of Nicole (Wise), a single mom studying to be a massage therapist. They have sex, but she emphatically tells him she’s not his girlfriend. Nicole has a young daughter Ally (Cadence Reese), who enters the room at inopportune moments, and a husband who died in “an accident.” We don’t learn anymore about the circumstances of this death. 

The rest of the film tries to explore the contours of this triangle. Despite declining that initial bottle of wine, Casey and Roger have an easy chemistry evident when they get drunk and high at an art museum, and play act with each other like kids in the park. While Casey and Roger seem to be rekindling their romance, he’s also going over to Nicole’s for late night trysts where she’s opening up to him. She and her daughter accompany him to a friend’s party; later, she encourages him to pick Ally up from school and take her to the playground. Although Nicole doesn’t want to commit to labels, she’s awfully comfortable letting Roger get close to her kid with little fear of how that might impact the child’s fragile psyche. This, however, is not really a concern of the movie. 

Instead, Holder is more interested in romantic shots of Holland biking around tree-lined streets, and the question of which of these women he’s going to end up with. Holder does little to show us why, in fact, Roger and Casey actually broke up in the first place. Beharie is particularly vibrant in the thin part, and her version of Casey is a weirdo prone to doing funny voices. Sidelined, however, is her frustrations with work. She runs a gallery that developers on her block want to take over (what happens to that space is one of the most irritating reveals in the film).

Wise, on the other hand, is sensuous and loving, but she too is hamstrung by the material. At one point, she’s asked to express sorrow that comes out of nowhere. A tear falls down her cheek, but there’s no build up to the moment. It’s Holland, however, who has the trickiest role. Roger is meant to be alluring, but something of a personal mess, and yet he mostly just smokes weed and acts charming. Holland does the latter particularly well, which goes a long way.

And yet all of the actors must plow through dialogue that is bracingly unnatural. For instance, Roger’s married friend, played by Roy Wood Jr., out of nowhere declares, “Is there anything better than breasts?” It’s a line that sounds like a parody of a horny guy. 

But perhaps most aggravating is the way “Love, Brooklyn” treats Brooklyn. For a movie that is ostensibly indebted to a place, it is a tourist’s view. Every character’s home is perfectly designed. Every bar is empty. When Casey needs a cab to go home, a yellow one miraculously pulls up without her having to hail it even though you’d be hard-pressed to find anything but a green taxi in the borough and even that is rare. 

Ultimately Holder argues that — despite gentrification — this place is still magical, except we never see any of the magic of which she speaks. We see a fantasy land, but that’s not the same thing as the true magic the city can offer. 

Grade: C

“Love, Brooklyn” premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

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