In Crooklyn, his first film since the overly ambitious, though commercially disappointed Malcolm X, in 1992, Spike Lee goes back to his childhood and reveals a different side of his persona.
Grade: B- (**1/2 out of *****)
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Theatrical release poster
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Sharply uneven, the film contains some slight scenes that are funny, while others are more serious and dramatic, but the changes in narrative and tone are abrupt and arbitrary; in other words, Crooklyn is a mess.
It’s a story of one, very special African-American family in Brooklyn in the l970s. Alfre Woodard stars as Carolyn Carmichael, the loving but careworn mother who struggles to make ends meet for her unemployed husband (Delroy Lindo) and their five children. Her ten-year old daughter Troy (newcomer Zelda Harris) has her hands full keeping up with her four obnoxious brothers. But as crisis after crisis inflicts the household, Troy and the other members must rely on each other to face the wild joys and shared sorrows of everyday life.
Spike Lee and two of his siblings, Joie and Cinque, collaborated on the screenplay, which is based on Joie’s story. It’s the seventh movie directed by Lee, meant to evoke, as he said, “a time when young urban African-American children were motivated primarily by two things: Television and sugar.”
Lee, whose earlier films have taken probing views of such controversial problems as interracial romance (Jungle Fever), urban violence (Do the Right Thing) and radical politics (Malcolm X), now uses his considerable talents as visual storyteller to convey the daily lives of one family in a particular time and place.
Lee claims that ever since his first movie, She’s Gotta Have It, in 1986, people have been asking him, “Spike, when are you gonna make a movie that I can take my children to”?
Crooklyn is not exactly a traditional family movie in the Disney mold, but it has a multi-generational plot that may appeal to children and their parents.
Inspired by Pixote and Stand By Me and
Joie Lee says that she had always loved “films that look at the world through a child’s eyes, such as Bob Reiner’s Stand By Me or the Brazilian masterpiece Pixote. This time, she felt they could offer a fresh perspective by telling a coming-of-age story from the point of view of a young black girl; most black films–and American films in general–have centered on boys.
Loosely based on the story of their own experience growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s, the script took a life of its own during the development process. While they all had fond memories of the time and place, they decided to focus on the relationship of the mother and daughter. The filmmakers’ goal was to pay homage to the experience of childhood, without trying to romanticize or glamorize it.
Most of the action takes place within a single block in Brooklyn, where the Carmichael family lives. The father is an idealized jazz musician, who staunchly refuses to adapt to changing musical tastes. In fact, his wife Carolyn can’t decide who needs more parenting, her children or her husband. Troy, the 10-year old daughter, does her best to help out, while her brothers–Clinton (Carlton Williams), Wendell (Sharif Rashid), Nate (Chris Knowings), and Joseph (TseMach Washington)–spend most of their long summer days watching TV and eating junk food.
Compared with the view of childhood one gets from the recent cycle of African-American films (Boyz N the Hood, Menace II Society, the upcoming Fresh), Crooklyn is both nostalgic and naive, looking with elegiac sadness at the past.
The ending goes for (but does not succeed in) a lyrically dreamy, optimistic mood. As the summer ends, the Carmichael family and their friends resume their lives. Troy assumes the matriarch role that Carolyn had left behind.
Carolyn’s spirit continues to visit Troy, praising her for taking on such maternal and familial responsibilities.
Though Crooklyn is messy and effective only in moments, it still is a personal film in a way that the more accomplished Jungle Fever was not.
End Note:
Dividing critics, Crooklyn proved to be a big commercial flop at the box-office.
Credits:
Produced, directed by Spike Lee
Screenplay by Joie Susannah Lee, Cinqué Lee, Spike Lee; story by Joie Susannah Lee
Cinematography Arthur Jafa
Edited by Barry Alexander Brown
Music by Terence Blanchard
Production company: 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date: May 13, 1994
Running time: 115 minutes
Budget $14 million
Box office $13,642,861
