Really Love is Beautiful and Realistic Cinematic Portrait of Black Love

Remember those days when you would be in a crowded room and that one girl or guy stopped you dead in your tracks?  You know the one who literally takes your breath away?  The one who you meet and spend one long date with that feels like it should last for the rest of your life?

Directed by Angel Kristi Williams with a powerhouse cast that includes Michael Ealy, Uzo Aduba, Nature Naughton, the late Suzzanne Douglas and romantic leads Kofi Siriboe and Yootha Wong-Loi-Sing, Really Love shows what it’s like when you fall not only in love…but in lust.

Howard University grad Stevie Richmond (Yootha Wong-Loi Sing) is on the cusp of bright legal career  and Isiah (Kofi Siriboe), who is a talented artists have a chance meeting at art show that changes their lives and links them in lust and love forever.  Angel Kristi Williams creates a world where a young couple swimming in melanin speak, behave and inhabit in a world that resonated with me and every Black person that will screen Really Love.  Kofi and Yootha’s chemistry sizzles right off the screen from the non-verbal glances to the tastefully shot love scene to the moment when the relationship goes off the rails.

Relationships are complicated.  One that feel the moon, feel the stars honeymoon phase dissipates and the rose colored glasses come off you begin to see each other for who you really are.  You either embrace the differences, learn to live with them or go your separate way.  More importantly, you are faced with the decision of deciding if you really want to put someone first who would not do the same for you.  Is this really the person you want to sacrifice  your dreams and goals for?  Steve and Isiah discover in their sweet, but short journey together that soemtimes people come into your life path for a reason, a season or a lifetime.

Williams’ script is very organically hilarious.  Anyone from the DMV (District – Maryland – Virginia) will appreciate those references along with the digs about folks from PG (Prince George’s) County claiming to be from DC. or the lines about mother watching too much HGTV.

In a post screening Q&A, led by Oscar winner Barry Jenkins, the director discusses the script giving Love Jones meets Blue Valentine vibes, how these characters are desperately trying to create space for each other to grow and that there are some people you fall in love with that you never forget – there are in you blood like a an incurable virus refusing to depart.

Really Love is a gorgeously crafted story about Black Love that makes you smile and warms you heart with a powerful final shot in the gallery in front of Isiah’s HER painting.  As the screen goes to black the audience is left wondering if they end up together, do they go their separate way or become the best of friends?  The outcome is totally whatever our imaginations allows it to be. Produced by Stephanie Allain, MACRO, Fred Berger, Tom Hern, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones  and Kelly McCormick, Really Love hits Netflix on August 25th.