Just Wright Review: Absolutely Wrong

I have decided that I’m going to have a torrid affair with Common. In my imagination, I had always dreamed that we would marry. Unfortunately, after watching Just Wright, I can no longer promise that. I can’t spend forever with this man, even if only in my imagination…

Just Wright stars Queen Latifah in the title role of Leslie Wright. 30-something and frustratingly single, Leslie can’t seem to find a guy who wants her for more than a friend. Enter Scott McKnight, pro-basketball player and star of Leslie’s favorite team. Scott meets Leslie, but is, of course, uninterested. That is until he meets Morgan, Leslie’s god-sister and a gold digger looking for her brand (status by NBA wife.) She is Cinderella to Leslie’s ugly duckling. Scott and Morgan have a whirlwind relationship which rushes quickly into talks of marriage. But when Scott is sidelined by a mid-season injury, Morgan takes off and Leslie remains to push Scott back into the sport he loves. But when Scott’s career gets back on the mend and Morgan returns, will Leslie ever have that happily ever after?

First off, there are so many places in which this movie fails. It completely boggles me as to how it made it to production. But then again, the same indifference shown throughout the film is probably the same reason this film was made. Such a catastrophic collision of banality and frivolity I have never seen before and hope to never see again. Skip this movie.

The first suspicion that this movie would be awful came at approximately 10 minutes into the film. This is the point where I realized that I didn’t care about these characters. The first scenes of the movie were disjointed, emotionless and set up only for production use. You could see the director’s hand heavily in the introduction scenes. It seems they didn’t want to go into character development so instead gave us a sort of snapshot into Leslie’s life. This feels lazy and costs us in the long run.

But then again, that’s a good word to describe this film: lazy. The performances given, especially by the two main stars, were per functionary at best. The whole thing seemed like a dress rehearsal; there was no emotion or truth put forward. Common seemed unnatural and too eager. He smiled a lot, and that annoyed me. Latifah gave a one-note performance; it was much the same from one scene to the next.

Considering what great talent is in this film, it is amazing how awful it turned out. Besides Latifah and Common, renowned in the field of music, we have such acting heavyweights as Phylicia Rashad, James Pickens Jr., Paula Patton and Pam Grier. And to give them credit all of their performances were adequate. On the other end, perhaps in an attempt to give this film authenticity actual basketball players were used in the making of this film. Great rule of thumb: DO NOT use basketball players in your film. Considering many of the people who are going to watch this film probably won’t know who they are, there was just an abundance of extras who cannot act.

One of the greatest flaws of this film is the lack of chemistry between the two main stars. Latifah and Common share the screen for the majority of the movie and during this time they have the romantic spark of drowned driftwood. It’s hard to imagine these people are friends, yet alone potential lovers.

I literally cringed while watching this movie. You know how it’s going to end, but watching it get there is painful. Every cliché that exists in romantic movies is here. The staircase scene, the cover tuck, Nightingale syndrome, it goes on and on. There is absolutely no originality in this film and it literally hurts to watch it. So, of course, this movie doesn’t pay off. Even so, this movie undercut my lowest expectations with a slapped together ending that was both trite and unbelievable. There is nothing worth seeing in this movie. Skip it.

Miracles happen everyday; but not here. Skip it.