Sundance 2025 Review: LOVE, BROOKLYN, Performance-Led Romantic Triangle Engages, Enthralls, Entertains

A catch-all phrase popularized over a decade ago by Meta (formerly Facebook), “It’s complicated,” meant to describe romantic relationships that didn’t fall into one particular category or another, finds its clearest, nearest, and obviously it’s most recent application in director Rachael Abigail Holder’s (Dickinson, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay) sweetly optimistic, sharply insightful, emotionally resonant feature-length debut, Love, Brooklyn.

 

Love, Brooklyn centers on a trio of 30-something Black Brooklynites, Roger (André Holland), a perpetually procrastinating magazine writer; Casey (Nicole Beharie), an art gallery owner and Roger’s ex; and Nicole (DeWanda Wise), the new woman and possibly long-term partner in Roger’s life. Roger faces an all-important deadline on a major essay on Brooklyn, past, present, and future. Despite the financial success of her art gallery, Casey faces relentless pressure from deep-pocketed gentrifiers to sell the art gallery or, rather, the building that Casey has inherited,  and which currently houses the art gallery. 

 

A recent widow and mother of one, Nicole faces important life-changing decisions, including whether to renegotiate the terms of her relationship with Roger from something casual to something more serious. Curious about Roger’s frequent presence in their lives, Nicole’s daughter, Ally (Cadence Reese), understandably wants clarity before she grows too attached to Roger.

 

One scene unfolds as a trial or practice run for Roger as he attempts to navigate Ally’s changing moods and expectations on a play date in the park. He’s well aware that failure isn’t an option, at least not if he hopes to take his relationship with Nicle to the next level or tier.

 

While Roger and Casey project a “we’re just friends and nothing else” attitude to the outside world, everyone else around them seems to know better. Even as they see, date, and repeatedly break up with other people, they still have unresolved feelings toward each other. Nicole’s increasing importance in Roger’s life, both in time and in emotional investment, points to a decisive discussion (i.e., yay or nay) in Roger and Casey’s undefined, possibly undefinable relationship. 

 

Making his feature-length writing debut along with Holder’s directorial one, Paul Zimmerman’s script keeps the comedy, romance, and drama typical of the genre, but keeps the melodrama somewhere off-screen. While Nicole poses a challenge to Casey and Roger’s relationship, she’s no villain, nor does Wise, incredibly appealing here as a wounded widow slowly regaining her sense of balance, play her character like one. They’re all flawed, all slightly (or more) self-interested, and hoping to connect (or reconnect) on a deep (or deeper) level and find the life partner they all, consciously or not, want and/or need. 

 

Buoyed by charming, charismatic turns from Holland, Beharie, and Wise, plus a strong supporting cast, including Roy Wood, Jr. as Roger’s married best friend, Alan, Love, Brooklyn goes down smoothly story-wise. A testament to Holder’s subtly handed, unobtrusive direction, Zimmerman’s finely turned, deft script, and grounded, naturalistic performances, each central character in Love, Brooklyn reveals depths to their personalities and experiences, as well as their disappointments and hopes for a future that might never arrive, giving them the depth, dimension, and proportion needed to turn the audience in their favor and root for their individual fates. 

 

Slightly undermined by a minor disconnect between the romantic storyline and the central theme (i.e., the rapid, unstoppable changes coming to Brooklyn, uprooting people, history, and tradition), Love, Brooklyn relies on the fusion of character and performer, and the believable resolution of their individual and collective stories, to overcome any doubts related to the superficially explored central theme. Whatever changes come – or have come – to Brooklyn, Roger, Casey, and Nicole will ultimately find a place to call home.