His only quirks are a poor fashion sense, a prior divorce and an endless love for his troops.Īs a portrait of two star-crossed lovers, the film stands strong, even though is seems to abandon Canedy’s career halfway through and milks the tragedy to make her and King almost epic figures. It also leaves King an unblemished figure, supremely noble. Though it might be called “A Journal for Jordan,” the film mostly focuses on the parents and leaves only as a coda the son’s story. The final, teary scene is also undercut when we’re told the austere location was completely made up for dramatic purposes. Watching Canedy give birth while alternating with King simultaneously presiding over a funeral for three soldiers in Iraq is laying it on a little thick. The screenplay by Virgil Williams is based on Canedy’s best-seller but takes some melodramatic liberties, often unnecessarily. King only met Jordan once before he was killed by a roadside bomb in 2006. “It’s all right for boys to cry,” is one thing dad writes to his baby boy. “Tell him who you are, what you believe in,” she encourages. While abroad, he writes in a journal for his newborn son, Jordan.
They must overcome separation - she’s in New York, he’s in Kentucky - and war, when he’s deployed to Iraq while she is pregnant. Their chemistry on screen is beautifully evident, a shy wistfulness that roars into lust and adoration. Jordan takes on the role of King and rising star Chanté Adams plays Canedy. But I don't think Sony is sweating the box office numbers right now, as their latest Spider-Man has swung to a billion dollars worldwide in ten days with opportune Oscar buzz beginning to rightly materialize.Review: Love, hope and ‘Three Thousand Years of Longing’ A Valentine's Day opening would have freed this from awards season expectations and multiplex competition this is in no shape to stand up to. Washington's only direction to Jordan appears to have been "Play this like a younger me would have" and the actor does succeed at providing a young Denzel impression that is perfectly on point when you close your eyes.īut the journalist and drill sergeant are paper-thin characters and thus it is incredibly difficult to be moved by their playful phone calls, romantic gestures, and relationship setbacks here. Gives us a flat leading man, doing nothing to inject the standard issue relationship squabbles with something distinct or substantial. And Jordan, the person in front of the camera you've come to trust over the past decade for knockout performances in films like Fruitvale Station and Creed, What value laid in Canedy's memoir is obscure in the screenplay by Virgil Williams, whose previous adaptation Mudbound earned him an Academy Award nomination. How Washington, one of the most commanding actors of our time and a director of increasing renown, could make something you mistake for a Hallmark movie is a puzzle. It plays out largely like a Hallmark romance but with less of the seasonal fun you might expect given the timing. The movie is meant to be a tearjerker, but it never earns those tears, instead simply boring you numb with its inexplicably methodical and unremarkable love story. It runs well over two hours with almost nothing to justify that length.
The titular journal barely features in the film and it's not clear why. Jordan) and embarks upon a primarily long-distance relationship with him. It tells the story of how Canedy (played here by Chanté Adams), a reporter for the New York Times, falls for divorced Army sergeant Charles Monroe King (Michael B. Washington again has a Pulitzer Prize winner on his side, but in this case, author Dana Canedy won for the series "How Raced Is Lived in America" and not the 2008 memoir that forms the basis for this slow, corny, hollow film. Washington returns to directing on A Journal for Jordan, an oddly inert romantic drama you'd never guess was from someone who last gave us Fences.
In addition to starring in Joel Coen's striking but dull monochromatic The Tragedy of Macbeth, Denzel Washington manages to disappoint on both sides of the camera this holiday season.
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