Review of Something New (2006) by Markb. — 14 Feb 2006

Sadly, the worse-than-mediocre box office of this Would-Be 2006 Valentine's Day Must-See will reduce it to a Trivial Pursuit question a few years from now: "What film starred and was directed by two different women named Sanaa?" That's a real shame, because Sanaa Hamri's account of Kenya (Sanaa Lathan, wonderful in Love and Basketball and about as credible an action heroine as Alien vs.

Predator had any right to expect), an appealing but somwhat hidebound professional African-American woman seeking a relationship with an IBM--Ideal Black Man--but develops one with a hunky, laid-back landscape gardener (Simon Baker, resembling an amalgam of Paul Walker and Gilligan's Island's Russell Johnson) who's markedly deficient in one-third of the acronym, is abundantly sweet, smart and subtly subversive.

If you had a few problems with the target choices of Cedric the Entertainer's take-no-prisoners, gleefully non-p.c. rants in Barbershop, be aware that this film's first 15 minutes feature a VERY frank conversation between four girlfriends in which nothing's sacred--not Jesse Jackson and certainly not the Muslim religion (a very risky thing to be joking about these days, even if you're NOT a Danish cartoonist!) While Hamri and screenwriter Kriss Turner certainly don't ignore the unfortunate reality that Black businesswomen have to work twice as hard to be considered as good at their jobs as their White counterparts (love that shot where Kenya is meeting with a White client who, even after she tells him that she's the one he'll be working with, disbelievingly looks out the door to see who else will be joining her), they also make gardener Brian the more sympathetic of the two.

In fact, he's treated so condescendingly (if not downright rudely) by Kenya's somewhat pretentious mom (Alfre Woodard), hypocritical brother (Donald Faison), most of her friends (and enen, sometimes, Kenya herself!) that if White characters were treating a Black individual this way in another film, audiences of both races would be understandably and justifiably outraged.

Not only do Turner and Hamri avoid all the obvious mistakes, evasions and copouts (Brian ISN'T too perfect to be true, a Black yuppie interested in Kenya who's set up as the Other Man isn't portrayed as a buffoon, and even Kenya's mother and brother are allowed to have moments of compassion and wisdom), but Hamri's direction is extraordinarily graceful.

She's wonderful at handling the reactions of disinterested background figures and extras, and includes an incredibly lovely, profound and poignant sequence the morning after Kenya's and Brian's first night together; both are bathed in a yellowish light that makes their skin tones seem absolutely identical.

Entertainment Weekly's film critic Owen Gleiberman has been widely quoted in ads for Brokeback Mountain as saying that Ang Lee's multiple-Oscar-nominated gem has the power to change hearts. So, too, in its own quiet, under-the-radar way, does Something New.