Sight&Sound - 04.2020

REVIEWS

76 | Sight&Sound | April 2019

Reviewed by Nikki Baughan It’s hardly surprising that it’s taken less than two years for Netflix to usher this teen-romance sequel on to screens. While the streamer famously doesn’t release viewing numbers, it described 2018’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

based on the first book in Jenny Han’s popular
YA trilogy – as one of its most viewed original
films ever. In following the same formula and
making the most of charming, relatable lead
Laura Condor as teen protagonist Lara Jean, P.S.
I Still Love You looks set to recreate that success.
In the aftermath of the events of the first
film, in which Lara Jean’s ancient love letters to
all her crushes made their way into the world,
she is settling into her relationship with new
boyfriend Peter (Noah Centineo). But her fears
that it won’t last are worsened by her suspicions
that Peter may still have feelings for his ex-
girlfriend; and then there’s the reappearance of
her old crush John Ambrose (Jordan Fisher).
That original director Susan Johnson has
been replaced by cinematographer-filmmaker
Michael Fimognari – who expertly lensed the
Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House and is
also helming and shooting an inevitable third
film, To All the Boys: Always and Forever, Lara Jean

is the only noticeable change. With its peppy
performances, colourful palette and pop-music
soundtrack, P.S. I Still Love You is firmly playing
to its adolescent demographic, distilling big
ideas of acceptance, individuality and love into
an easy-to-swallow, by-the-numbers format.
It’s enjoyable enough, however, and will surely
strike a chord with youngsters who will recognise
their own feelings and insecurities on screen.
The fact that it flirts with issues of revenge porn,
consent and self-respect, albeit with the same
gentle approach, is something to applaud.

To All the Boys P.S. I Still Love You USA 2019 Director: Michael Fimognari

High-school student Lara Jean has settled into her first official relationship, though she is still nervous about how things with boyfriend Peter will pan out. The situation is made complicated when John Ambrose, a boy to whom she wrote one of her many love letters years before, reappears in her life. She realises that the course of true love never runs smooth.

Produced by Matthew Kaplan Screenplay Sofia Alvarez J. Mills Goodloe Based on the novel P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han Director of Photography Michael Fimognari Edited by Joe Klotz Production Designer Chris August Music Joe Wong Production Sound Mixer Simon Bright Costume Designer Lorraine Carson ©Awesomeness, LLC Production Companies

Netflix & Awesomeness present an Ace Entertainment production An Awesomeness Films production Executive Producers Max Siemers Robyn Marshall Jenny Han Sofia Alvarez Rebecca Glashow Shelley Zimmerman Don Dunn Scott Levine Marc Bienstock Susan Johnson

Cast Lana Condor Lara Jean Covey Noah Centineo Peter Kavinsky Jordan Fisher

John Ambrose McClaren Anna Cathcart Kitty Janel Parrish Margot Ross Butler Trevor Pike Madeleine Arthur Chris Emilija Baranac Genevieve, ‘Gen’ Trezzo Mahoro Lucas Holland Taylor Stormy Sarayu Blue Trina Rothschild John Corbett Dr Covey In Colour [2.35:1] Distributor Netflix

Credits and Synopsis

Reviewed by Hannah McGill The subject of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s handsome, sleek and loving documentary portrait could hardly be more camera-friendly. With her expressive face, steady gaze, mellifluous voice and ready chuckle, Toni Morrison is a joy to watch and listen to – a figure possessed of a charisma so forceful that it’s not hard to imagine another trajectory having placed her on the stage or on the movie screen. From the early lesson about the power of words gleaned from the impact of writing “fuck” on a pavement, through her covert delight at having some of her books banned, to her infectious joy at being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, the anecdotes here feel practised, but rich and sincere nonetheless. Friends and associates provide context, analysis and praise. The latter commodity is in abundance, and commentators can trespass into hagiography (“If there’s life on Mars, they’re reading Toni Morrison to find out what it’s like to be human,” claims scholar Farah Griffin, while Angela Davis locates Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved as a turning point not just in US literature but “in the history of the world”). However, when it dials down the hyperbole the film shows us a complex, tough and ambitious woman – one who questioned whether the pressure on black writers to engage continually with white racism wasn’t in itself racist; who penetrated the heart of the white literary

establishment as a senior editor at Random House, and was edited for her whole fiction career by a stalwart of that establishment, Robert Gottlieb, but also used her position to gain book deals for figures such as Davis; and who loved the bells and whistles of success and recognition. “Navigating a white male world was not threatening. It was not even interesting,” she says. “I was more interesting than they were. I knew more.” From a less compelling individual, this would reek of grandiosity, but Morrison makes you thoroughly believe it. Her radical self-confidence also marks a striking contrast with a contemporary discourse on rights and race that can seem to fetishise and thus reinforce white perspectives by insistently defining the experiences of people of colour through the lens of ‘white privilege’ or ‘white supremacy’. Greenfield-Sanders would have made a more prickly and challenging film if he’d teased out some of the debates around race and intellectual culture that have evolved over Morrison’s period of fame; or permitted some harder critical appraisal of her books (all negative reviews are here construed as racist in motivation); or even if he’d had her in discussion with some of the other talking heads, rather than charming the camera only. Still, if this film plays it a little safe, it remains a deeply engaging tribute to a woman who did not.

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am USA 2019 Director: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders Certificate 12A 120m 16s

A documentary portrait of American novelist, editor and professor Toni Morrison, who died in 2019. Interviewed by Sandra Guzmán (though speaking directly to camera), Morrison describes her working- class childhood in Lorain, Ohio; the stellar career in book-editing that she built up while also raising

two children as a single parent; and the process whereby she went from writing fiction in the hours before her sons were awake to becoming one of the world’s most garlanded novelists. Commentators on Morrison’s work and influence include Oprah Winfrey, Fran Lebovitz, Angela Davis and Sonia Sanchez.

Produced by Timothy Greenfield- Sanders Johanna Giebelhaus Chad Thompson Tommy Walker Interviews by Sandra Guzman Director of

Photography Graham Willoughby Edited by Johanna Giebelhaus Music by/Score Producer/Piano/ Keyboards/Vocals Kathryn Bostic Location Sound

Produced by Perfect Day Films Inc. In association with American Masters Pictures Major support provided by AARP Additional support provided by JustFilms

Ford Foundation Executive Producer Michael Kantor Featuring Toni Morrison In Colour [1.78:1]

Distributor Republic Film

Conversation pieces: Toni Morrison

Credits and Synopsis

Sight&Sound - 04.2020

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