The Photograph (Stella Meghie, 2020)

For every prestige picture or blockbuster that swallows up the discourse on diversity and representation in the commercial film industry, there's an un-bespoken retinue of also-rans made by those who are just humbly hecking out their filmmaking careers. Stella Meghie, a Canadian-born writer-director, has three pictures already under her belt, her best yet known being the young-adult romantic drama Everything, Everything (2017). Her latest is The Photograph, another romance, this one starring Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield as a formulaic pair of professional urban middle-class lovers whose brief fire risks being snuffed out by the calls of career opportunity and their  own personally guarded natures. Both of them photographers, the archivist Mae and the journalist Michael's bittersweet love affair is juxtaposed with the story of Mae's late mother, a photographer in her own right, whose own ambition and drive tragically pull her away from closeness, both as a lover and mother.

Meghie's work here notably avoids scenes of explosive outburst or histrionics. Not sedate, her drama instead suggests the feeling of a fleeting jazz. Her and cinematographer Mark Schwartzbard's emphasis on soft lighting and warm palette is invaluably complemented by the moody electricity of Robert Glasper's original score. The resulting combination is a sensual effect, one that exceeds the typical decadence of the boiler-plate romantic drama. It's rare to find a film of this type that is not so concerned about jerking tears or sewing quirky comedy relief. Instead, The Photograph seduces the spectator with a cool, confident resiliency that somehow never subtracts from its simultaneous functioning as a generational drama, the story about "love lost" between not only Mae and Michael, but also between Mae and her mother. The reason the film works, even in its own modest way, is that Meghie is able to give expression to just enough of a sympathetic alienation that the temptation of "love conquers all," the wish-fulfillment of everything working out with that one right person, feels like a pertinent salve, rather than just a Bachelorette-style prize.