Pre-COVID, I made an effort to see as many new releases in theaters as I could, but sometimes something would slip through the cracks. Sometimes it was due to something obvious, like how it wasn’t my genre of choice or it was a sequel to a movie where I hadn’t seen the original either. Sometimes it was just bad timing. In the cast of The Photograph, I have no idea what the reason was. I don’t generally go for romantic movies, but I will go to one of them before a lot of the cheaper looking horror movies and many kids films. It did look slick and sweet, with an attractive couple in the lead roles set up around a pair of stories involving two generations of lovers, one of whom was the daughter of the woman from the older pair. It was probably just COVID timing.
That said, I hadn’t seen Issa Rae’s HBO show when the trailers for this started showing up and had no idea she did a lot of comedy. I was so used to this trailer, I was actively wondering what she was doing in the trailers for the eventually-released-to-Netflix The Lovebirds. Granted, I still haven’t seen her HBO show, but at least now I know she at least started as a comedic actor.
Reporter Michael (Lakeith Stanfield) is interviewing Hurricane Katrina survivor Isaac (Rob Morton) in New Orleans when he spots a photograph among the older man’s collection that catches his eye. It’s a photo of a woman named Christina Eames (Chante Adams), and Isaac basically lets it be known she was the one great love in his life that got away. Interested in learning more about Christina’s story, Michael looks up where she went from there. She had been a photographer working in New York City, and even though she herself is deceased, her daughter Mae (Rae) is a museum curator with access to her mother’s work. She and Michael hit it off and start seeing each other.
What follows is essentially two stories intertwined. One is about the ultimately doomed relationship between Christina and Isaac (played as a younger man by Y’lan Noel) while the other is the start of a promising one between Michael and Mae. In many ways, the tone for the two relationships could not be more different. Christina and Isaac’s relationship, related mostly though her perspective, doesn’t work out because she is feeling far too confined to stay in New Orleans while Michael and Mae’s story seems to be often more humorous, particularly anytime Lil Rel Howery shows up, but the story is showing parallels to the past. Christina left Isaac because she wanted to move somewhere else. Michael just got a job offer to go to London, and given how new his relationship is, he isn’t sure what he should do about either. Christina and Isaac didn’t work it out. Can Mae and Michael?
So, yeah, this isn’t my usual genre, but it is also isn’t a dopey romantic comedy where there’s a contrived obstacle to keep the central couple apart in the last twenty minutes of the movie or with some sassy old lady or something. This is a straightforward drama about how to keep love going, even over long distances if necessary. There’s no neat bow to tie on this one in that sense, but it does end in a hopeful manner that suggests the younger couple, or at least Mae, learned from the mistakes of the older pair.
Besides, Stanfield and Rae have some really great chemistry. I’ve seen him in a lot of good stuff, and he’s a solid actor. Rae is likewise able to hold her own, making her appearance in the aforementioned The Lovebirds even more shocking. Maybe if I was familiar with her HBO work, I would feel differently, but quite frankly, if she can do what she does here more regularly, she might have a more diverse career ahead of her. So, while this isn’t my usual genre of choice, I am glad I took the time to check it out.
Grade: B+
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