Barely eking by before the point when movie theaters would be dealt a death blow from COVID-19, The Photograph’s release on Valentine’s Day seemed to predestine it for the last bit of cinematic glory for the foreseeable future. Indeed, everything about Stella Meghie’s fourth feature film smacks of something out of an Old Hollywood romance (obviously, Ryan Murphy’s version of Old Hollywood). Most glaringly with regard to the meet-cute scenario of Mae Morton (Issa Rae) and Michael Block (Lakeith Stanfield), who encounter one another thanks to the confluence of events surrounding the death of famous (in New York) artist/Mae’s mother, Christina Eames (Chanté Adams).
Commencing in Louisiana, with Michael doing some fieldwork for an article about life post-Katrina, we meet Isaac Jefferson (Rob Morgan), a fisherman who has lived on the bayous his whole life, and has plenty to say about Katrina and beyond. Including a brief mention of a great love lost when Michael notices a photo of Christina among his bric-a-brac. When Isaac mentions she’s an artist, Michael’s interest is piqued, getting his intern, Andy (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), to do more research on her when he gets back to The Republic offices in the city.
It is then that he meets the Queens Museum’s assistant curator, Mae. Their attraction is overt, with Michael making his fascination known via his body language. Mae, on the other hand, is more guarded though it’s clear she feels similarly. What’s more, Michael’s tendency to dive headfirst into relationships often spells their premature demise because of all the enthusiasm he puts in at the outset. Fresh from a long distance relationship with a woman named Tessa (who, incidentally, lives in New Orleans), Michael’s brother, Kyle (Lil Rel Howery), is quick to advise him not to jump into anything so fast when he mentions his raw infatuation with Mae. Of course, though she did promise to call him so they could talk more about Christina (an obvious pretense), she opts not to, something within her echoing the “I don’t need anyone” nature of her mother, whose own narrative is interspersed throughout the film.
In fact, The Photograph opens with a VHS tape interview that asks Christina some hard-hitting questions that forces her to admit that she wishes she was as good at love as she was at her work, having a tendency always to abandon people. An abandonment pattern that starts in 1985, when Christina had gotten her fill of living with Isaac, who can’t “see himself” living in New York, as he phrases it to Christina, after she confesses that’s where she wants to go–that she wants more out of life than what the outskirts of New Orleans can give her. Realizing that maybe her mother, a longtime detractor of Isaac’s, was right, and that he’ll only hold her back, she decides to disappear into the night on a bus bound for the proverbial big city.
Three months in (with no mention of how she managed to survive that long–then again New York was admittedly cheaper in the 80s), she finally lands a job as a photographer’s assistant, the first sign that she’s “meant to be” there (as so many other “artists” would also like to believe). Yet her good news is met with bad, as she receives a call from her best friend informing her of her mother’s death. Heading back to Louisiana with her tail between her legs for the funeral, Christina is also shocked to learn that Isaac has gotten married. She catches a glimpse of him with his new wife before leaving once more, seemingly resolved never to return. Except that she does, just one last time to sell her mother’s house. It is on this occasion that Isaac actually comes face to face with her, also meeting her four-year-old daughter, Mae. He offers to take her to the bus station, and with one final kiss on his cheek, Christina says goodbye for the last time.
Throughout this overlapping story Mae and Michael’s own fraught romance is heating up after he deliberately runs into her at a screening of a movie the museum is having. The dynamic intensifies that night over dinner, as the two debate over Drake versus Kendrick Lamar. Mae is all about the former, while Michael prefers Kendrick’s intensity. In this way, Issa Rae twice betrays her homeland of L.A. by 1) appearing in a New York movie and 2) turning her back on Lamar. Although Mae says she likes Kendrick well enough, his music makes her feel guilty because, as she seems to think, we can’t all be the change we want to see in the world. After this faux “heated” argument, a moment of solemnity falls over them as Mae asks something to the effect of, “Do you ever think who you are boils down to who you’re with?” Michael shrugs, “Then I guess it’s important who you surround yourself with.” So it is that he further secures his in with her, kissing her at the table as though that’s something people really do in a non-darkened restaurant (a move that seems particularly anathema post-corona).
Their relationship escalates all the more when a hurricane advisory is issued, and he goes over to help her move some things to her apartment. Writing off the seriousness of the storm as something on par with Hurricane Irene over Hurricane Sandy (just another “wink wink” New York joke), the two hole up at Mae’s apartment, in the evacuation zone, to listen to Al Green and drink whiskey. Which, naturally, leads to the most time-honored hurricane activity for those sequestered à deux. Unfortunately, their post-coital bliss is interrupted when the building is evacuated, sending them uptown to Michael’s brother’s, clearly shaking his head over Michael’s overt violation of his advice not to rush into things.
Looming in the background of it all is a job interview Michael had with a London-based publication, insisting he wants a change, though not really knowing why, or if it’s more motivated by running away from his own psychological defects in relationships. This, along with so many other pieces of the plot’s puzzle, will come to roost in Act Three, which, when we finally arrive to it, seems like it was all designed to build up to that first date dinner conversation about Drake versus Kendrick. Something of an overlap for New York versus London. In the current climate, neither city holds appeal, just one of many ways in which The Photograph feels like more of a historical rom-com than perhaps it ought. Even so, that doesn’t detract from its sentiment, which Meghie manages to render as non-cheesily as possible, a feat achieved thanks in part to Rae’s (who has also worked with the director on Insecure) knack for comedic timing even in more staid films.
