Crooklyn

Because Lee's previous films have been so fervently about something that they smothered much of the very humanity Crooklyn celebrates, the relaxed gait is strikingly apparent.

Apart from being the two female presences in the house, Carolyn sees singular fortitude and possibility in Troy. Their scenes together are the heart of the movie.

Lee seems to confuse noise with drama: the bickering Carmichaels create quite a racket, but we're seldom moved by their plight. In his most desperate moment, Lee shoots a long sequence through a distorted lens.

Lee is a great self-promoter. After all his press releases and all his interviews, we are given films that are sketchy, unfelt and distancing -- incidents in Lee's career, the only drama that really interests him.

The key problem is that the film is simply a ragged series of anecdotal sketches.

Unfathomable. Yet, as Crooklyn demonstrates, what may be out of reach for most is quite literally what Lee was born to do.

An elegiac Bed-Stuy fairy tale.

Nuanced depiction of a black family in Brooklyn; language.

In spite of the flaws of the Virginia interlude I really enjoyed this.