Winning the race
Everybody knows that Crash — that ponderous examination of L.A.
race relations — pulled a major upset to beat out BrokebackMountain for Best Picture at this
year’s Oscars. What few people know, however, is that Crash wasn’t the only film to tackle the
thorny issue of race this year; nor was it, in my opinion, the best.
Something New,
released on DVD May 16, tells the story of Kenya McQueen (the gorgeous SanaaLathan), a young
professional whose career is on the rise, but whose love life has taken a
backseat to her work. Her friends complain that her standards are too high;
that she must give up on finding the IBM (ideal black man) of her dreams. Then
she meets Brian (Simon Baker), who she immediately dismisses simply because
he’s white. After a disastrous first meeting, she runs into him again at a
friend’s engagement party; he’s her friend’s landscape
architect. Coincidentally, Kenya
is in need of a landscape architect herself. No points for guessing how this
story ends.
But that’s not the point. Far from the typical brainless
romantic comedy, this film actually has some things to say. Kenya
and Brian’s relationship faces opposition from both friends and family, and in
addition forces them to confront their own latent prejudices. There are scenes
of touching intimacy when they’re allowed to be alone together, giving them a
bubble of protection from the world. Still, the hostility Brian faces from Kenya’s
well-meaning friends, as well as the subtle racism that Kenya
faces at her job, puts incredible strain on their romance. It culminates in a
heated supermarket argument between the two lovers late in the film that is
heartbreaking in its honesty.
But whereas Crash was heavy-handed and didactic (its ultimate conclusion was delivered with much
more wit, if not subtlety, by one of my favorite songs from the Broadway
musical Avenue Q, “Everyone’s a
Little Bit Racist”), Something New never forgets the most important job of any good film: to entertain. Sweet,
romantic, funny, and with some intelligent thought behind it, the film is a
damn near perfect combination of heart and brains that will appeal to anyone
who’s ever fallen for someone the rest of the world didn’t approve of.
— Adam Lubitow
This article appears in May 17-23, 2006.
