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Filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood, the Emmy-winning TV writer making her film directorial debut, infuses the piece with such smart dialogue and good social insights that the sports milieu is in balance with the drama. In too many sports-themed flicks, the athletics take over and turn the movies into a TSN or ESPN highlights package.
Prince-Bythewood is a protege of Spike Lee, who co-produced Love And Basketball. The association is obvious on screen: Like Lee, Prince-Bythewood explores the often subtle, complex and confused reasons people do what they do.
In the new movie, that is crucial. So is her approach to the people at the heart of the story. Race is not an issue here, so the couple's black heritage is simply and elegantly depicted, not endlessly debated. The characters in Love And Basketball are not forced to justify their existence or their status. They exist. And they have their own problems to solve.
The couple at the heart of the movie start off as new neighbours in an upscale Los Angeles community in 1981. They battle, they bicker, they ridicule, they indulge in puppy love and kiddie hate.
But they share one obsession: Basketball. The girl wants to be the first female in the NBA, to the horror of her mom (Alfre Woodward). The boy is the talented son of an NBA player (played by Dennis Haysbert) who keeps emphasizing in vain the value of a good education. Two plucky kid actors, Kyla Pratt and Glenndon Chatman, bring them alive.
In the teen and adult segments of the movie -- they are listed on screen as quarters two through four, as if the movie were a basketball game -- the characters are played by two splendid rising stars, Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps, whose own real-life love chemistry spills over on screen.
Epps and Lathan have more than sexual dynamics going for them. Each is a strong enough presence on screen to communicate a sense of humanity through the eyes, not just through the words.
Each actor is intensely believable. Either can command the screen, making them worthy equals. The genders are as balanced with each other as the romance is with the sports.
Love And Basketball is also gentle and sweet, but not sickeningly so. Nor is the story arc simplistic, either in the love or the basketball arenas.
So there are obstacles facing both individuals. There are cruel things done in the name of fame on the court, and for satisfaction in the bedroom.
Real life is in play here. That makes Love And Basketball a slam-dunk entertainment.
(This film is rated AA)