The Inkwell

It isn't a good sign when a movie's screenwriter refuses to use his own name. Its even worse when that screenwriter also authored the original novel on which the movie's based. But when that writer adopts as a pseudonym an Italian phrase that implies the director is an idiot, you've got big trouble.

That's the background to The Inkwell, the movie over which novelist Trey Ellis and filmmaker Matty Rich (Straight Out of Brooklyn) have been trading insults. The movie itself is basically an African-American version of The Summer of '42, with every cliche intact and not a single original thought in its head.

Set during the Bicentennial summer of 1976, The Inkwell stars Larenz Tate as a teenager whose progression toward man­hood is slightly stunted by his shy sensitivity, as well as by his strained relationship with his polit­ically radical father (Joe Morton). But a vacation to Martha's Vineyard — and his sexual initi­ation by the genre's obligatory older woman — firmly places Tate on the road to adult­hood.

Haven't we seen this film three dozen times already? This isn't even the first time that it's been done within an African-Amer­ican context (e.g. The Learning Tree). And The Inkwell doesn't bring anything new to the party. It's a ham-fisted piece of movie­making that's barely salvaged by some fine actors.