Coming Attractions,  entertainment,  Film Reviews

Jeffrey Wright and Ashton Sanders Soar in Netflix’s All Day and A Night

 

All Day And A Night – Ashton Sanders, Jeffrey Wright – Photo Credit: Netflix / Matt Kennedy

 

If you had all day and all night to understand your life…where would you begin? Some begin with those familiar faces from the block who just disappeared and you wonder where they went.  Some are teens arrested over a bag of weed and now are the prison OG’s spending their entire lives behind bars.  Generations of men…brothers, uncles, cousins sharing part of the same story on repeat.  Welcome to Jahkor’s view of the world.

Jahkor (Ashton Sanders) never wanted to be like his father JD (Jeffrey Wright), and his father never wanted to see his son in prison. Yet somehow finding themselves together as inmates seemed inevitable. In an unlikely journey of self-discovery, Jakhor explores the dangerous world that unites them, hoping to help his newborn son break a cycle that feels inescapable.

Black Panther co-writer Joe Robert Cole brings a whole new lens to the trajectory of generational  black men going down the rabbit hole of lock up.  What I love most about this film is the reverence given to the maternal figures.  Cole shows the respect a young Jah gives his mother, grandmother and girlfriend and the love they give in return despite his volatile and unpredictable behavior.  A behavior and attitude which has obviously been  learned and unconsciously copied from his father.

In one of the most heartbreaking scenes, young Jah begs his Dad’s dealer to cease selling drugs to his Dad.  The dealer’s responded with a smiling smirk “…he’s my best customer.”  It is that moment you know Jahkor has changed forever. On the flip side, there is one moment with JD and Jahkor’s Mom (Kelly Jenerette) that will make you cringe from being so incredibly uncomfortable, but an intense filled great acting moment.

These types of films are always really hard to watch.  As a woman of color, I grow weary of watching our men feel like they have no options in life depicted on screen.  At the end of the day, it’s just like slavery which taught Black people how to survive…yet not how to live.  For it is in that moment we truly recognize our real power as a people.  The power to become whatever we want if we just believe. We may be born in prison due to color of our skin, but we are NOT prisoners.

All Day and A Night is streaming on NETFLIX now.

I love, love love movies, watching them and discussing them...thus the birth of The Curvy Film Critic!!! Host/Producer/FilmCritic,Carla Renata is a member of such esteemed organizations as Critics Choice Association (Co-President Documentary Branch), African American Film Critics Association, Online Association of Female Film Critics and Alliance of Women Film Journalists. My op-eds or features have been seen in VARIETY, RogerEbert.com, Maltin on Movies, The Cherry Picks, IGN Movies, as well as being a frequent Guest Contributor to Fox 11-LA, Good Day LA, ET Live!, Turner Classic Movies, KCRW Press Play with Madeline Brand, The Cherry Picks, The Stream Team (Beond TV) ITV, Fox Soul's The Black Report, The ListTV and more. Catch my reviews on The Curvy Critic with Carla Renata - LIVE!!! Sundays 5pm PST via You Tube or Facebook Live. If you like what you read please shout me out and subscribe to The Curvy Critic on YouTube. You can chat with me across all social media platforms @TheCurvyCritic and as always, thanks for supporting a sista'

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: