Friends and family of a married black architect react in different ways to his affair with an Italian secretary.
Writer/Director: Spike Lee
Stars: Wesley Snipes, Annabella Sciorra, Spike Lee, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Samuel L. Jackson, Lonette McKee.
Started out feeling like a fairly trivial story about an extramarital sexual encounter. When WS tells best friend SL about it, I was shaking my head, wondering why. Sure enough, SL tells his wife who tells WS's wife (LM), and then she's dumping his possessions out of the window. That's overly dramatic considering there's been no confrontation, and they have a young daughter (1st/2nd grade) who understands that the noises they make are making love.
LM's over-reaction is fueled by racism; her father was white, mother black, and she'd been called all the derogatory names for light-skinned blacks. Then we get reactions from various peripheral characters, including racism unrelated to this affair. And not only b/w racism, but also Italian vs. blonde.
AS (WS's encounter partner) has an ugly ambush at home: her father's reaction to her having had sex with a black man. Fortunately her 2 brothers pull him off. We don't learn how he knew, but she told her gf's.
We get WS & AS (the relationship continued after LM threw him out) play-fighting on the street, and someone calling the cops to protect the girl. Another example of really dumb behavior by this architect.
We meet WS's parents (OD & RD) and his junkie brother SLJ, who confronts family members often for $$ for his habit. OD has no tolerance for him, and the most striking plot point of the film is the final confrontation in that home.
I had to watch it again to determine my rating. It has depth.
Universal & more, dir. Lee; 7-
