{"id":8561,"date":"2024-11-19T00:10:04","date_gmt":"2024-11-19T05:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8561"},"modified":"2024-11-19T00:10:04","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T05:10:04","slug":"the-photograph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/19\/the-photograph\/","title":{"rendered":"The Photograph"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Photograph <\/strong>(2020)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sexuality, brief strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Stella Meghie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Stella Meghie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Robert Glasper\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mark Schwartzbard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 14, 2020 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Issa Rae, Lakeith Stanfield, Rob Morgan, Lil Rel Howery, Teyonah Parris, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Jasmine Cephas Jones, Chante Adams, Y\u2019lan Noel, Chelsea Peretti, Courtney B. Vance, Maxwell Whittington-Cooper, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Dakota Paradise.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $20.5M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019d rather look at a photograph of the two main characters in the romantic drama The Photograph<\/strong> for two hours than ever sit through this boring beyond belief movie again. I could imagine a much better story than the one laid out by writer-director Stella Meghie (Everything, Everything). I haven\u2019t been this thoroughly disinterested in a movie or its characters since the last Terrence Malik pretentious POC (December\u2019s A Hidden Life). I could barely stay awake with all the dialogue-free dramatic pauses that stop the movie dead in its tracks. The scenes with people talking are only marginally better. I\u2019m talking a very slim margin.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Photograph<\/strong> starts off promising with New York journalist Michael (Stanfield, Knives Out) interviewing a man named Isaac (Morgan, Just Mercy) at his home in New Orleans for a story he\u2019s doing on deceased photographer Christina Eames (Adams, Monsters and Men). Isaac knew her back in the day; they had a smoldering love affair that ended when she took off for New York in \u201984. He refers Michael to her now-grown daughter Mae (Rae, Insecure), a curator at the Queens Museum. Naturally, he becomes more interested in his source than the story.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A parallel narrative set in the 80s tells Isaac and Christine\u2019s story. They\u2019re in love and her mother (Blake, When They See Us) doesn\u2019t approve. As a mere fisherman, there\u2019s no way he\u2019ll ever be a moneymaker. Ultimately, Christine decides to follow her dream and hops a bus to the Big Apple to begin a new life without Isaac who wants to stay in Louisiana. Back in the present, Michael and Mae grow close as they continue their research on her mother\u2019s life. Questions about Mae\u2019s paternity arise. It doesn\u2019t take a genius to figure out exactly where this plot thread is headed. It\u2019s as predictable as night and day.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I give credit where credit is due. There are two aspects of The Photograph<\/strong> I like; the gentle cinematography by Mark Schwartzbard and the sultry jazz score by Robert Glasper. The look of the movie recalls the romantic movies of old while the music lends a note of class. It\u2019s miles better than rap or hip-hop. This is clearly a movie intended for adults.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As much as I admire its artistic merits, I just can\u2019t get past the fact that I didn\u2019t care about the story or its characters. It didn\u2019t pull me in. However, if I had choose one or the other, I\u2019d say I liked the flashback story more than the main one. Sadly, it\u2019s not as developed as it should be. In fact, underdevelopment appears to be the flavor du jour in The Photograph<\/strong>. There\u2019s a subplot about a romance between Michael\u2019s intern (Harrison, Waves) and Mae\u2019s best friend (Jones, Monsters and Men) that doesn\u2019t get its due. Stop me if you\u2019ve heard this one. They say they\u2019re not into each other but they really are. That pretty much sums up their story arc.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The acting itself isn\u2019t bad. Stanfield and Rae are okay, but I never really felt the supposed heat between them. I felt like they liked each other, but their attraction was based solely on the screenplay requiring it. Unfortunately, they have to contend with co-stars that steal every scene they\u2019re in. I\u2019m referring to Lil Rel Howley (Uncle Drew) as Michael\u2019s married-with-children brother and Chelsea Peretti as Michael\u2019s boss, a character less broad but not too far removed from the captain\u2019s assistant she played on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Anytime they\u2019re on-screen, The Photograph<\/strong> has a faint pulse.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It felt like time stopped the whole time I watched The Photograph<\/strong>. It bored the living hell out of me. The story didn\u2019t move me; the main characters didn\u2019t interest me. I had zero emotional investment in any of their drama, both as individuals and a couple. The ending felt completely false. In short, I did NOT like The Photograph<\/strong>. While it has its good points, it\u2019s simply not enough to make it worthwhile.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Photograph (2020)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 106 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sexuality, brief strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Stella Meghie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Stella Meghie\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Robert Glasper\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mark Schwartzbard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 14, 2020 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Issa Rae, Lakeith Stanfield, Rob Morgan, Lil Rel Howery, Teyonah Parris, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Jasmine Cephas Jones, Chante Adams, Y\u2019lan Noel, Chelsea Peretti, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/The-Photograph-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8561"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8849,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561\/revisions\/8849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}