Movie: "BLACK & WHITE"
(Limited Release)
Rated: R
Running Time: 137 minutes
Director: Michael Ray
Cast: Ben Forest, Juliana Aiden Martinez, Peter Hart, Anna Lakomy, Alexandra Bailey, Anna Fikhman.
- By Steve Wanegrow
Does two plus hours of unlikeable characters doing unlikeable things to one another, all shot and edited like a rap video, sound like a good time at the movies to you? If so, then "Black & White" is for you. If not, then save your money. This independent release from first time filmmaker Michael Ray is very ambitious, very long, and very schizophrenic. Unsure if it's a drama, a romance, a comedy, or some weird combination of the three, all one walks away from this picture thinking is: Are white women really worth all the trouble? According to this story...yes.
"Black & White" places us in New York 2013, a city full of narcissists, career driven young adults, and people doing whatever it takes to get ahead. Every character seems to have some chip on their shoulder and their own unique perspective on why they are still single. Our main character is an African American businessman named Will (Ben Forest) who has a rather unhealthy obsession with white women. He starts most mornings with hot sex involving a beautiful white female named Amy (Anna Fikhman). After each session he pays her. She clearly isn't your normal booty call. But he tells people she is his bisexual ex-girlfriend. He then heads to his job, where he flirts with his leggy blonde co-worker Katherine (Anna Lakomy from Discovery Channel TV show "Deadly Sins"). Once in a while he will have dinner at a fancy restaurant with a cute and busty brunette named Stacey (Alexandra Bailey) who can never seem to show up on time. All seems well right? Um, wrong.
The problem for Will, is NONE of these women care about him. At all. His prostitute friend Amy refuses to kiss him on the lips. Even when they say goodbye. Katherine has no idea Will has a thing for her and he is terrified of telling her he is crazy about her. And Stacey is more concerned with checking her text messages and spouting her outrageous theories on love (she coldly proclaims "Being close is overrated. Everyone is either with someone they can trust but don't find all that hot, or someone they find hot but know they can't trust" at one point) than actually getting to know the man sitting in front of her. It is clear to the audience that Will has no chance of a real relationship with any of these women and the only one that is sleeping with him is doing it for the money. This fact is clear to everyone, well everyone except Will.
Will's best friend is a struggling comedian and drug addict named Matt (Peter Hart) who seems to be going nowhere in life yet loves to critique others (we all have friends like that right?) and thinks he knows everything. Early on in the film when Will tells Matt he is struggling to make any ground with these women, Matt suggests a ploy of lies (something many of the characters in this film do) in order to force the girl who truly cares about Will to reveal herself. Only problem is; the plan is completely stupid. But Will (who we can already tell isn't the brightest bulb in the box) buys into it totally. While the two actors have a great chemistry and Matt's one liners provide some of the film's funniest moments, you just don't buy their friendship as worthwhile. Both build themselves up with lies in order to impress the other. Will tells Matt that Amy is his booty call ex-girlfriend when she is really a hooker. Matt tells Will he has a big comedy showcase coming up and has quit cocaine, when the truth is he is getting high every night and has not performed stand up in months since he is too fucked up to write any new material. Both want the other to think they have everything under control, but both will end up succumbing to their respective addictions.
It is needless to say Matt's advice goes terribly wrong when implemented by Will and this is when the film takes a turn for the better. After a crazy nightmare where Will's exes try to kill him, he encounters his polar opposite. Early in the film we see a brief scene of another character not involved in Will's life named Tessa (Juliana Aiden Martinez) dealing with her own issues. She is a single mom with money problems and an abusive ex-boyfriend who is constantly in and out of her life. After he beats her up in the alleyway of her apartment her character disappears from the film leaving you wondering, "what the hell was that all about?" Once she returns to the film you realize what the filmmaker is setting up. Both characters are drowning in their own sea of self confusion. Tessa is a white girl who acts "black". Will is a black guy who acts "white". They are strangely perfect for each other yet also all wrong for each other. Despite the silly way they are introduced to each other (I don't think I'd ask someone out on a date after they just tried to rob me, but hey that's just me) from the moment they start to bond you are rooting for them to be together. This is due in large part to the acting of Martinez who fills Tessa with much range. Her character is dark, enigmatic, damaged, funny, sensual, and unpredictable, all at the same time. She is used to fending for herself but sick of it at the same time. In Will she sees the guy she has perhaps been waiting for. But do they have enough in common to sustain a real relationship? And can she truly give up her old ways?
I do not want to spoil where the film goes from here but it thankfully gets stronger as it heads towards it's shocking finale. While the first half of the movie is full of our main character aimlessly throwing himself at heartless women, the second half is a real romance between two people who aren't even aware of how badly they need each other. When things inevitably go wrong (as they always do in films like this) you wonder how it will be fixed. Some may not be pleased with the route the film takes, others may find it refreshing. I liked the idea behind what was done but not how it was executed.
It would be impossible to review this film without mentioning the visuals. The movie is shot unlike any film I have ever seen. There are little segments between scenes or even lines that seem to come from nowhere. Characters flashing on screen, falling down in slow motion, silhouettes of actors in front of white backgrounds acting out certain gestures, etc. A character is crying and we see a giant CGI tear drop fall into a pool of water. A character is getting high and we see prescription pill bottles fall to the ground in slow motion in front of a blank background. The director also uses very strange and new camera techniques to weave us in and out of scenes. Helicopter shots float us across the Manhattan skyline and make New York seem like an ominous character in the film, stifling the characters and their dreams. The music soundtrack is also very prominent in the film as well. Almost every 10 or 15 minutes there is some sort of music video type montage that pushes the story forward. It is all quite intriguing, but much of it completely unnecessary.
The acting in the film left much to be desired. Our lead is great at being humorous and is given many moments to do so, but when asked to be serious or emote, it does not seem to work. Most of the females are relegated to eye candy with the exception of Martinez who is wonderful but one wishes she was used more. She is doing her best here to bring weight to the story but the director's attention seems to be focused more on editing tricks, pimping the soundtrack, and reminding the viewer that Lakomy's Katherine character is apparently every boy's wet dream. While Katherine is clearly the girl Will pines for, Tessa is the girl he needs. Will cannot see this though since Tessa displays all the behavior he probably abhors in African American women to begin with. Hart is very memorable as the best friend and has all the mannerisms of a cokehead down (all the way down to the random sniffles and constantly losing his frame of thought). The actor who plays the father of Tessa's daughter also gave a spirited and realistic portrayal of a wanna be gangster rapper who abandons his responsibilities as a father. Martinez is given the film's most powerful scenes because she can handle them and she knocks them out of the park. I only wish we got to see more of her but since this is Will's story, we only see enough of her until Will realizes his dream isn't to be with a white girl who loves black men, but a white girl that normally ignores them. That is his ultimate downfall.
At 2 hours and 17 minutes (and it feels alot longer) "Black & White" is in desperate need of an editor, and a conscience. As I said at the beginning, it is hard to root for ANY of these characters to find love since none of them are all that likable. No one is honest. Everyone is inherently selfish. And only when confronted with the truth do they try to make some big excuse for their reckless actions. Maybe this is some sort of grand commentary on the dating scene in New York for 20 somethings (regardless of race) but there should at least be one good sensible person in a film with almost a dozen characters. I couldn't find one.
Ultimately I do not know if this film will be remembered as a movie even about interracial love. That to me is just used as a smoke screen. Personally I think this movie is about what happens when you pigeon hole yourself into a corner and create this perfect "type", this dream guy/girl you think is waiting for you that will make all your problems go away. So many characters in the film could be happy if they just saw what was right in front of them but instead they choose to delude themselves into thinking they deserve something better. Something more. Sadly I came up with that all on my own. The filmmaker here leaves a lot of the philosophical analyzation up to you since after the "shocker" ending things just sort of ...well "stop". The film then cuts to another music video montage reprise of all the characters. This type of ending is usually a powerful one when you actually care about the people on screen. Here it's more of a visual high school yearbook photo collage of all the kids you hated and hope to never see again.
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