Brown Sugar

In its marketing material, Brown Sugar, the new comedic romance starring Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan, is being compared to a hip-hop version of ...When Harry Met Sally. In reality, it more closely resembles Love and Basketball, the 2000 film that gave Lathan her breakout role. In Sugar, basketball is replaced by hip-hop in a story about Dre (Diggs) and Sidney (Lathan), best friends who share a love of hip-hop music and culture. She’s the editor of XXL magazine while he’s a record executive. When Dre marries Resse (Ari Nicole Parker), and Sidney falls in what she thinks is love with Kelby (Boris Kodjoe), the two friends realize that maybe their feelings of friendship are really something more.

It’s short, it’s sweet, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. Director Rick Famuyiwa, who wrote and directed Diggs in the coming of age film The Wood, covers no new ground here and his attempts to link Sidney’s feelings about hip-hop and her feelings about Dre are not always successful, but that doesn’t seem to matter. In the end, the film is about fun, and Diggs and Lathan, two of the most beautiful people in movies today, seem ready to supply it. The supporting cast, which also includes rappers Queen Latifah and Mos Def, do their best with what they have to work with. All in all, it’s a fun and diverting two hours spent in good company. Sometimes that’s all you need.

Submitted 09 November 02. Posted 14 December 02.