So many films with Black protagonists center themselves on either on Black suffering or Black excellence, and sometimes on both. Often, these films are biopics or otherwise based on true events, as if studios believe that audiences cannot wrap their minds around the fullness of a Black person’s life unless it is well-documented or celebrated. This seems to be the case even in films that are not focused on suffering or excellence: when they appear, Black characters seem wholly unaware of their race, or only just aware enough to make some sort of gif-able comment about white people. So when films come along that center not on Black suffering or excellence, but on Black life, when Black characters exist not to cheer on a white protagonist or affirm their humanity, but to exist in their own Blackness, it feels like a treat, like something we should all pay attention to.
This is why I went into my viewing of Sylvie’s Love feeling optimistic. On its head, it seems like the type of film that could quickly take a turn into the horrors of racial trauma: it takes place in New York, in the late 50s and 60s, just as the civil rights movement was ramping up nationally. Sylvie (Tessa Thompson) dreams of being a television producer at a time when Black people were rarely in front of the camera — let alone behind it — while Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha), her lover, is a burgeoning jazz saxophonist, trying to break into the music industry at a time when white-run labels were taking advantage of — and profiting from — Black artists. It’s easy to imagine the points at which the film might have become a treatise on race, but from the opening it’s clear that writer and director Eugene Ashe has resisted that lure and instead chosen to foreground Sylvie and Robert as Black people in love, not in pain.
In this respect, Sylvie’s Love is a marvel. Blackness is simply a fact of life in Sylvie and Robert’s world, not something to be endured. When Sylvie finally pursues her career in television, she is surprised to learn that her boss is also a Black woman (Ryan Michelle Bathe), but neither is singled out or harassed for her race. Instead, they are allowed to do their work and thrive. Robert, likewise, finds himself being admired by the eccentric Countess (Jemima Kirke), but her interest rests genuinely in his musical prowess, rather than a paternalistic fascination with Black talent. It’s a refreshing state of affairs, especially in a period film. But for all of its beautiful costuming, lived-in cinematography, and moving musical cues, Sylvie’s Love falls short on emotional depth: uneven narrative pacing and a slightly too-shy performance from Asomugha dampen the sparks between Sylvie and Robert, so that what should be passionate, world-moving, instantly-classic romance feels like an emptier reproduction of its predecessors.
Words and gestures are vital to on-screen romances, and in these categories, Sylvie’s Love provides amply: Robert and Sylvie are both willing to sacrifice their own happiness so that the other can thrive, and lines like, “Life’s too short to waste time on things you don’t absolutely love,” feel ready-made to pull at the heartstrings. But what truly makes a romance, what takes love from an abstract idea to a tangible, physical experience, is a look. As writer Alanna Bennett tweeted, “The number one thing a man in a [romance] needs, TV or movie, is the ability to look at their love interest REALLY WELL. The man barely even needs to speak if he just knows how [to] LOOK at a person.” Here, Sylvie’s Love misses its mark. When Sylvie and Robert’s eyes first meet, it’s almost a non-event — Robert looks down almost as soon as Sylvie looks up, but the nervous response appears more born out of a natural shyness than a specific response to Sylvie’s piercing eye-contact. In the aftermath of their first kiss, Sylvie reminds Robert of her engagement to the absent Lacy Parker (Alano Miller), and in response he tells her, “You don’t have to keep reminding me that you’re engaged. It’s all you ever talk about. Which is a shame ‘cause it’s actually the least interesting thing about you.” It’s a bold thing to say, and to Sylvie — whose mother runs an etiquette school and whose life, like many women, seems to revolve around a very specific idea of desirability — it’s significant; it feels like something Robert should say with his eyes just as much as his mouth. But Robert doesn’t look at Sylvie at all when he speaks. Instead, he throws the words in her general direction, looking at the floor and failing to gauge her reaction. It takes the gravity out of the line and muddles the source of Robert’s frustration: is he trying to communicate what Sylvie means to him, or is he simply tired of talking about her fiancé? Ashe rarely gives Robert and Sylvie the space to look at each other or into each other. The camera cuts away almost every time their eyes begin to linger, and when it doesn’t, it’s far away: we aren’t really allowed to read the emotion in their eyes. For these choices, the depth of Robert and Sylvie’s romance suffers.
What Ashe chooses to linger on instead are Robert and Sylvie’s respective career struggles, which, in any other movie, might have been welcome; in Sylvie’s Love, however, this focus creates a strange imbalance. It quickly becomes unclear what the film finds more compelling: love or professional success. Equal weight is given to both aspects, and for Sylvie, so intent on being an independent woman and finding her way in love, it makes sense. But for Robert — whose failing music career Ashe spends much of the latter half of the film detailing, even going so far as to tell us that “jazz ain’t cool anymore” — the structure falters. When the couple comes to a crossroads of love and careers, the groundwork exists for Robert to change the face of his goals (which could still center on music, if not jazz) for the sake of loving Sylvie. However, Robert chooses instead to sacrifice their mutual happiness so that Sylvie may succeed in her dream career, and he can completely give up his. The moment feels impulsive and needless, a flawed attempt at paralleling Sylvie’s earlier sacrifice, rather than the bittersweet offering of a man in love. It’s a misguided effort to establish Robert as a selfless martyr that ends up making him look more like a prideful man emasculated by the success of his lover, and it undermines the utility of the significant parts of the film dedicated to the rise and fall of Robert’s music career. As a result of this almost compulsively analogous story, Robert and Sylvie’s final reunion feels more obligatory than earned, a hastily-hit reset button on a mistake that never should have been made in the first place.
Sylvie’s Love is a beautiful film: archival footage of New York is seamlessly woven in between scenes, and it truly does feel like a love letter to the films of the 50s and 60s that could have been if not for racism. However, its beauty cannot cover up its unevenness: it uses tenuously plotted personal sacrifices to communicate the depth of Sylvie and Robert’s affections, instead of letting that love speak for itself, and often, the beautiful set pieces and costuming are more mesmerizing than anything between the couple. As a film that celebrates the fullness of Black life and lets its protagonists exist as individuals rather than representatives of Blackness, it’s wonderful. But as an exhibition of passion and romance, ultimately, Sylvie’s Love is forgettable. It fails to truly immerse its audience in its emotional narrative and chooses to foreground the novelty of what we see in Sylvie and Robert as casually Black protagonists, instead of emphasizing the mesmerizing force of what they see in each other as lovers.
