Really Love

REALLY LOVE begins as a travelogue of urban Black life on the streets of Washington, D.C., and slowly the camera moves from the general to the particulars of two attractive young people looking for professional and personal fulfillment. Isaiah (Kofi Siriboe) is a promising young painter looking to attract the attention of an influential gallery owner and manager named Chenai (Uzo Aduba). At a solo show of his older, successful friend Yusef (Michael Ealy), Isaiah runs into Stevie (Yootha Wong-Loi-Sing), a law school student who dreams of working for a well-respected firm in Chicago. Isaiah filters his subjects — ordinary Black people — through what he calls a “distortion,” and makes them extraordinary through thick layerings of sculptural paint. Chenai encourages him but counsels that he must dig deeper and commit himself more deeply to his work before she can offer him a solo show and represent his work. Well-meaning parents insert themselves into their children’s lives, with a concerned dad questioning the practical value of creating art in a mercenary society, and an adoring mom worrying that the love of the moment can distract her daughter from climbing the professional ladder to the highest rungs of success. Class, economic status, and race all join the couple in bed and begin to plant seeds of doubt in the relationship.