Brown Sugar
Starring Taye Diggs, Sanaa Lathan

Directed by Rick Famuyiwa
Rated PG-13 for sexual content and language

**3/4 out of 4 Stars

Released October 11, 2002

Running time: 109 minutes

**3/4

by Kevin Lang

"Brown Sugar," starring Sanaa Lathan and Taye Diggs ("The Best Man," 1999) and directed by Rick Famuyiwa, attempted to marry hip-hop music and romance into a soulful composition about two childhood friends who eventually grew up only to question if their was something more to their feelings for one another. The film's union of hip-hop music and romance became a somewhat overemphasized metaphor. However, this did not necessarily hinder me from enjoying the film. The filmmakers just tried too hard to convince us of the metaphorical connection.

The film at times was a poorly written love letter to hip-hop with a love story as the envelope in which this letter was being sent to us. In the movie, the main characters Sidney and Dre (Sanaa Lathan and Taye Diggs), talked a lot about what hip-hop meant to them, but the audience never became part of the conversation. We didn't get the chance to connect with what they were talking about, because we saw very little of it. Instead, we got to overhear their secondhand stories about hip-hop, but they never really showed us much hip-hop. Therefore, we couldn't experience their memories like we could experience the young journalist's, William Miller's, love for music in "Almost Famous" (2000). In that case we saw how it influenced his life. We saw the music, which helped us to understand not only that particular music, but it also helped us to understand William himself.

Sanaa Lathan was not unfamiliar with this type of role, having starred as Monica in 2000's romantic drama "Love and Basketball," which used basketball instead of hip-hop as part of a similar, but more convincing metaphor.

The plot was rather simple. Sidney was a hip-hop music critic for the Los Angeles Times, and Dre worked for a record label that disregarded true hip-hop by signing such untalented acts as Ren and Ten - The Hip-Hop Dalmations. Sydney and Dre had a strong friendship whose depth and true definition was tested when Dre proposed to and married another woman (Nicole Ari Parker). Sydney eventually became engaged to someone else as well. I began to wonder if the two would ever come to terms with their feelings for one another. Don't worry. I won't spoil it here.

What we got was a decent romantic comedy with enjoyable humor, especially from the supporting cast, including Sydney's best friend Francine (Queen Latifah) and Dre's talent discovery, Chris (Mos Def). In the end, "Brown Sugar" was an entertaining film despite its minor flaws.

Review written October 11, 2002, CTF.