Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
Lee’s first full length feature sees us drop in on the life and relationships of Tracy Camilla Johns’ Nola Darling, a young Brooklynite who is juggling three men. Not, like literally. That would require a great deal of upper body strength.
No, she’s in simultaneous relationships with the seemingly upstanding Tommy Redmond Hicks’ Jamie Overstreet, the ludicrous male model John Canada Terrell’s Greer Childs, and Spike Lee’s Mars Blackmon, who I believe we’re supposed to find amusing. At least Nola does, so I suppose that’s the draw for her.
The three relationships have their ups and downs, with Nola not particularly committing to any of them, and it says here, enjoying the freedom that men have to cheat on their girlfriends. And, well, it is cheating, at least until it becomes clear to all parties involved that there are other parties involved, at which point the parties start to come to a close.
In terms of plot recap, perhaps surprisingly, there’s not a great deal more to it than that. It’s hanging its hat on a being a sex-positive story with a female lead, and, well, while that does qualify as something different – even today, to be honest, I’m not sure She’s Gotta Have It does the best job of explaining itself.
To be sure, it’s much more than a gender-flipped Alfie, but there’s not room in the script, or perhaps time and budget, to go much beyond the surface of things, either in characterisation of Nola’s blokes, who all came across as total tools, or Nola’s philosophy of her relationships.
When combined with a rape scene that’s so underplayed in terms of impact to all parties concerned you’d be forgiven for thinking it wasn’t a rape scene, there’s perhaps a good few reasons that Lee has chosen to recently re-explore these topics and themes, but in a (currently) 19 episode televisual format rather than a, what, eighty minute film once you take out Spike’s dad’s jazz stylings.
I’m in slightly odd place with She’s Gotta Have It. To be sure, it’s an assured debut feature and rightly place Lee on the “talent to watch” list, and while I’m already on board with the central message about the double standard on male and female promiscuity, as I’m sure are all the intelligent, discerning, open-minded and fresh-scented listeners of this podcast, I don’t think the film itself does a great job of explaining that message for the Neanderthal sections of the audience, who, to be fair, are never going to watch this anyway.
With a few ropey performances, I’ve more niggles with this film than perhaps any other we’ll talk about today, but broadly speaking I still rather enjoyed it and won’t dissuade anyone from catching up with it, but perhaps not the best place to start your explorations of his catalogue.