Love & Basketball mixes sports and love by following two friends through their lives on the court and with each other. It’s not a great film, but it is the type of film that bridges the gap and provides a sports flick which couples can enjoy together.
Love & Basketball
Custom Rating
“It’s a trip, you know. When you’re a kid you see the life you want, and it never crosses your mind that it’s not gonna turn out that way.”
Love & Basketball follows the lives of two children (Kyla Pratt, Glenndon Chatman) who grow-up to be best friends and share a love for the game of basketball. As they reach maturity Quincy (Omar Epps) struggles with the stress to reach the NBA and prove himself as a better man than his womanizing father (Dennis Haysbert). Monica (Sanaa Lathan) struggles through playing college ball to near empty auditoriums before graduating and moving overseas to follow her dreams.
One of the film’s strengths is the dichotomy it shows between the men and women’s game and the perception and reality of each. Quincy, a second-generation player is courted and recruited to play for sell-out arenas and Monica struggles to make a name for herself in a game with a far smaller following, all the while fighting expectations of those, including her mother (Alfre Woodard), who just want her to leave her aggression and the game behind and grow into a successful and demure young woman off the court.
Whether she’s a better actress or just given the better role Lathan’s half of the movie seems to have more resonance than Epp’s storyline. Perhaps it’s her constant struggle not just with her circumstances and the expectations of others, but the expectations of herself which help round her into a more interesting character.
Of course the film is also cursed with cliches from two genres – sports dramas and romantic comedies. The film weathers most of these scenes pretty well, even the awkward other love interests the story throws in from time to time, and an ending which is a little too weak (and far too cute) for the rest of the film and includes a short speech which is guaranteed to get squeals from the women and earn equally loud groans from the men. Some things are too corny, even for film.
I wouldn’t argue that Love & Basketball is a great sports film, but it’s far better than the insipid chick flick I expected going in to view it for the first time. It has both heart and brains, and tells a compelling story of two people (though Monica’s story is the more interesting) struggling to live their dreams, make their careers, and find love.
