There’s no shortage of wrong in Just Wright

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/05/2010 (5642 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Screen chemistry is a strange thing. Sometimes it floods the screen and fills in the gaps of an inferior script with sweet sexual nectar. Other times, it’s so palpably absent, it makes every scene feel inexplicably hollow.

Sadly for director Sanaa Hamri, Queen Latifah and Common, Just Wright just isn’t right at all. A romantic comedy with a dramatic edge, this well-intentioned piece of schmaltz starts off with a hint of difference, but funnels down into a bland mash of beige cliché by the final frame.

The upside to the whole denouement is Latifah, the rap artist turned Oscar-nominated screen icon who takes on the role of Leslie Wright, a physiotherapist with a basketball jones.

Leslie is a 30-something single gal who lives with her parents and watches New Jersey Nets games with her gorgeous cousin Morgan (Paula Patton). Morgan has an agenda when she’s courtside — and it’s courting. A ball bunny seeking to snag a rich NBA superstar, Morgan knows every player and his marital status.

Leslie just loves sports. She doesn’t care about snagging the perfect point guard, but that doesn’t mean she’s entirely ambivalent about romance. At the top of the reel, we watch Leslie on a blind date with a handsome dude. She’s all doe-eyed for the man, but when it comes time to say goodbye, it’s clear the fresh prince sees Leslie as a friend, a beer-drinking sports fan and a great person to hang out with.

No man, as yet, has been able to see beyond Leslie’s love of numbered jerseys and her beat-up Mustang. Frustrated at always being the "home girl" instead of the "hottie," Leslie decides to put her love life on the back burner. She’ll leave the romance to Morgan, a woman so skilled at seduction, she actually makes a man believe she cares about him — when really, she’s a complete, and unapologetic, narcissist.

No more than one scene later, Leslie is filling up her golden jalopy at the gas station when one of the hunkiest (fictional) stars of the NBA, Scott McKnight (Common), starts looking for the gas cap on his new Maybach.

Of course, a jockette like Leslie knows where the Maybach’s fuel tank is, how it works, and when to insert the nozzle. Impressed by the home girl’s skills, McKnight invites Leslie to his house party — because that’s what pro ball players do in movies.

Leslie and Morgan head over to McKnight’s glorious Manhattan pad together, and when Morgan ends up landing the high-profile player like a prize swordfish, the movie promptly stalls.

The problem is twofold: First, the plot reaches a suitable conclusion in the first act as the two cosmetically pleasing people hook up in predictable fashion. They look good together, and even if Morgan seems like a stuck-up, phoney, manipulative egotist who puts herself and boutique shopping before everyone else, she’s an entirely believable pro-sports spouse.

The second snag is the knowledge that the pretty people are doomed, since this is a Queen Latifah movie, after all, and we have to wait for the plot to untie their love knot.

And wait we do, as Morgan gets nastier and Leslie gets nicer, and the balance of romance begins to shift. Facilitating this transformation is fate, as Scott ends up with a serious knee injury that Leslie is contracted to rehab.

We’re supposed to fall in love with these two as they fall in love with each other over ice packs and chicken noodle soup, but the formula just doesn’t click, because, as sympathetic as these characters are, there isn’t a hint of sexual energy between them.

It’s a sad failure, because this is really a Cinderella story that attempts to provide an antidote to our obsession with perfection. We need movies like this, but to really work, we have to believe in the couple standing centre frame and, while they make a nice picture, the Queen and the Common-er just don’t connect.

 

— Canwest News Service

 

Other Voices

 

Selected excerpts from reviews of Just Wright.

 

The movie is a rigged game of clichés and platitudes, but fans will be pleased by additional proof that Latifah is a lovable Queen but not a pampered princess.

— Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

 

Just Wright is probably best thought of as a fairy tale, from start to finish. It’s just not a very good one.

— Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic

 

Since the frisson of conflict is what makes movies work, Just Wright flounders, slick as an NBA commercial, pretty as a Jersey-in-spring postcard.

— Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

 

Latifah has too much personality for this drivel and Common doesn’t have enough.

— Steve Pursall, St. Petersburg Times

 

That absolutely no chemistry exists between them as love interests is the first of the many flaws in a film that also demands we believe the New Jersey Nets could become Eastern Conference champions.

— Melissa Anderson, Village Voice

 

You know these two are meant to be together, and the de rigueur obstacles that stand in their way are visible from a mile off.

— Christy Lemire, Associated Press

 

Painting by numbers often gets a bad rap: While it takes little originality to fill in the romantic-comedy blanks, even a simple, competent job can sometimes feel like a breath of fresh air.

— Andrew Barker, Variety

 

Compiled by Shane Minkin

 

 

 

Movie review

Just Wright

Starring Queen Latifah, Common, Paula Patton, Phylicia Rashad

Polo Park

G

Two and a half stars out of five