SummaryTyler Perry's tale of forbidden love and family drama unravels 40 years of secrets and lies against a soundtrack of juke joint blues in the Deep South. [Netflix]
SummaryTyler Perry's tale of forbidden love and family drama unravels 40 years of secrets and lies against a soundtrack of juke joint blues in the Deep South. [Netflix]
This is an ambitious, handsome-looking picture that strives to capture the essence of life in the deep South in the mid-20th century in a way that makes movie sense, without excessively romanticizing it.
A Jazzman’s Blues overflows with melodrama, yet it isn’t staged broadly. It’s closer to Perry’s version of a Douglas Sirk film, one that takes a romance and heightens it until the complications are growing and twisting around it like vines.
A Jazzman’s Blues is a passion project that climbs close to the edge of becoming self-indulgent fodder. The film is never as deep as it thinks it is. Nor is it terribly original either. But for Perry, this is a massive change. And while you shouldn’t praise a director for merely trying. Perry does more than try with “A Jazzman’s Blues.” He finally shows that he’s not a one-trick pony.
At its core, A Jazzman’s Blues is a soap opera full of shocking secrets, emotional confrontations, and one exceedingly satisfying slap.The mystery aspects are thin; anyone with passing knowledge of Black American history can infer early on who was killed, why, and by whom.
Every narrative twist is telegraphed, every dramatic choice is expected, every character is one-dimensional, and every scene of heightened emotion is built around tin-ear dialogue.