The movie follows Monica Wright (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy McCall (Omar Epps) as they discover their talents and decipher their complex relationships-with basketball, with their families, with each other. Twenty years ago today, first-time writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s semiautobiographical film was released nationwide. “I don’t understand, like, what are we doing if ‘This Woman’s Work’ isn’t playing in the background?” “It’s important to reinforce that we do have love for one another and we love loving one another, contrary to popular belief.” The Insecure actress-comedian says if she can’t have a love like Monica and Q, then she doesn’t want it. To Orji, the movie represents something more than a credible sports story. She even dressed up as Monica, the movie’s main character, for Halloween-gold no. She loved basketball and played for her high school team, and her favorite movie was Love & Basketball. Seeing the characters get a grip on that makes for a film that is watchable, but not terribly meaningful.Yvonne Orji was like a lot of teenage girls in 2000. (If ever there was a 2-hour film that didn’t need to be 2 hours long, this is it.) Love eventually wins, right at the buzzer, but the overall impact is not particularly strong, because we already knew that basketball was just a game and that love was more important. The opening scenes with the youngsters are cute, the first scenes with them in high school are engaging … and after that, it turns into a stale soap opera, certain to induce seat-squirming in even the most attentive viewers. Despite their best efforts, though, “Love and Basketball” wears out its welcome. Woodard is an asset in any film, and this one is no exception.Įpps and Latham have a certain chemistry as Quincy and Monica, and they do a lot toward making the film enjoyable. Woodard’s role as Monica’s mother goes largely unnoticed until near the end of the film, when the two have a strikingly poignant scene that addresses gender roles and family values. The film is marked by good performances across the board. Both are basketball stars, though, and both wind up playing for USC, where their romantic relationship blossoms and withers, in the midst of basketball-related trials. By high school, the two (now played by Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan) are still friends, but have other romantic interests. Quincy and Monica develop a childhood crush for each other, which dissipates over time. Quincy’s dad, Zeke (Dennis Haysbert), an NBA player, is proud of his son’s talents, but wants him to focus on getting an education rather than following in his exact footsteps. In 1981 suburban Los Angeles, 11-year-old Monica Wright (Kyla Pratt) and her family move into an affluent neighborhood where lives young Quincy McCall (Glenndon Chatman) and his family.īasketball is all Quincy and his friends care about, and Quincy is surprised to learn that Monica is just as good at it as they are - much to the chagrin of her mother (Alfre Woodard), who wishes her daughter wouldn’t be such a tomboy. “Love and Basketball” is a movie about love and basketball - specifically, the idea that the former might be more important than the latter, but that maybe they can intermesh.
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