Sylvie s Love. Amazon Studios
There are films that invite the viewer in by emanating an energy so lush and warm that you long to continue living in that world even after the runtime has ended. I get this feeling whenever I watch one of Douglas Sirk s 1950s melodramas that, despite holding up a mirror to serious themes like racism, classism and Puritanical social mores, offer a kind of comfort and splendor in their Technicolor richness and grounded translations of mid-century American pathos.
That same energy radiates through Eugene Ashe s
Sylvie s Love, a stylishly moody period drama riffing on love and desire both romantic and professional. In the steamy New York summer of 1957, Sylvie (Tessa Thompson) is a young woman from a well-to-do family with dreams of working in television; for the time being, she s helping her dad Herbert (Lance Reddick) look after their family-owned record shop. When the talented saxophonist Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha) drops in one day to inqu
Dec. 23, 2020 3:20 pm ET
Eugene Asheâs âSylvieâs Love,â streaming on Amazon, takes place in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and looks like one of those lush, deliciously glossy Technicolor romances that Ross Hunter might have produced and Douglas Sirk might have directed, except for one readjustment of the formula. Most of the people in it are Black. Whatâs startling about that is how unstartling it is until you stop to think about those old films and how narrow their spectrum was.
The pleasure of this one, partly set in a jazz milieu, is its embrace of all the conventionsânot just the melodrama and the star-crossed lovers but careerist ambition, emergent feminism, cultural pretension. The heroineâs mother, Eunice (Erica Gimpel), presides over a Harlem finishing school that prepares proper little girls for cotillion. Sheâs so pretentious that she asks a young jazz saxophonist if he studied at a conservatory. Some of that must have rub
Sylvie s Love: Old-school mush, new-age spin
By IANS |
Published on
Thu, Dec 24 2020 13:27 IST |
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Sylvie s Love: Old-school mush, new-age spin(photo Credits: Twitter/Prime Videos). Image Source: IANS News
Sylvie s Love : ; Cast: Tessa Thompson, Nnamdi Asomugha, Aja Naomi King, Ryan Michelle Bathe, Eva Longoria, Jemima Kirk; Direction: Eugene Ashe; Rating: and 1/2 (three and a half stars)BY VINAYAK CHAKRAVORTY
Once upon a time when filmmaking was a far more earnest affair, this is the way romantic drama would have been imagined. I say imagined because Sylvie s Love takes the essential template of the grand old Hollywood romance and gives it a new-age twist. The film is still the same love story, but with coloured protagonists reorganising the socio-politics of the genre.
Tessa Thompson lights up the screen in Sylvie’s Love, a throwback to the classic melodramas of the 1950’s.
Writer/director Eugene Ashe sets this romance in the New York of the 50’s and 60’s, with a Technicolor palette to match and a glamorous outfit on Thompson in every scene. It’ll make excellent Holiday viewing, especially if you’re tired of all the movies with “timely” in the trailer.
The titular character, Sylvie (Thompson), is
the quintessential mid-century heroine. She’s the daughter of a record store owner and a woman who can appreciate both Bill Haley and Sonny Rollins, while also being a fan of such TV shows as
Let Sylvie s Love Wrap You In All Its Goodness
Sylvie s Love.
Amazon Studios
There are films that invite the viewer in by emanating an energy so lush and warm that you long to continue living in that world even after the runtime has ended. I get this feeling whenever I watch one of Douglas Sirk s 1950s melodramas that, despite holding up a mirror to serious themes like racism, classism and Puritanical social mores, offer a kind of comfort and splendor in their Technicolor richness and grounded translations of mid-century American pathos.
That same energy radiates through Eugene Ashe s
Sylvie s Love, a stylishly moody period drama riffing on love and desire both romantic and professional. In the steamy New York summer of 1957, Sylvie (Tessa Thompson) is a young woman from a well-to-do family with dreams of working in television; for the time being, she s helping her dad Herbert (Lance Reddick) look after their family-owned record shop. When the talented saxophonist Robert (Nna