Crooklyn

Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to mind your own business. Take Crooklyn, for example. With this, his latest film, a surprisingly mellow Spike Lee makes a sentimental journey back to his old neighborhood circa 1970 – a trip filtered through the innocence and malleability of children, as they grapple with the high anxiety of the adult world. Crooklyn is a slow, subtle and often rewarding movie.

According to Time magazine, however, Lee’s trying to set a social agenda for black filmmakers.

Say what? Even Lee has given up on the idea that he can set any kind of an agenda for anyone else. Besides, if the over-the-hill white boys at Time want to blame somebody for introducing a social agenda into the African-American cinema (as if this were a unique idea), then they should take that issue to Charles Burnett (director of To Sleep With Anger). Lee himself has acknowledged Burnett’s influence on black film making, and in some ways, Crooklyn plays like an extended homage from Lee to Burnett.

Crooklyn is a will-o’-wisp of a movie held together by the slim but tender plot thread of a middle-class Brooklyn family that’s desperately holding on to its economic foothold, while the musician father (Delroy Lindo) takes a slippery gamble in the pursuit of pure music. The family’s held together by the sheer, harsh and often embittered tenacity of the mother (Alfre Woodard in the best role of her career). She frequently comes across as a shrew, but her love for her family extends even beyond death.

At its best, Crooklyn possesses a sense of emotional intimacy and an authentic feel for its place and time that makes it a joy to watch. Despite a few false steps, Crooklyn is a good slice-of-life study.