Starring Omar Epps, Sanaa Lathan, Alfre Woodard, Dennis Haysbert
USA, 2000
This love story set in the world of basketball follows a couple from childhood to adulthood, dividing their lives, relationship and career into four "quarters" -- before high school, when they first meet as kids; during high school, when they're both playing for the school teams and hoping to get into USC; college, when they're both playing for USC and after college, when they both go pro.
Their lives are intertwined from the first day they meet, as her family moves in next to his. He's the son of a pro NBA player who wants to follow in his father's footsteps. She's a huge Magic Johnson fan who wants to be the first woman in the NBA.
One things that goes a long way to making this movie more memorable than most of its kind is that it takes people's jobs and careers into account. And I don't mean just token mentions, or plot devices like someone has to stay late at the office or go on a business trip or something like that. I mean like the movie really takes the goals and ambitions of the two leads into mind, and shows the true consequences, hurdles, successes, etc. that might come along with them, in a very specific way.
Although this movie is not so tied to the sports backdrop that the outcomes of games become important plot points, it is super realistic about the world of sports, and that in and of itself is inherently interesting because you don't often see that in movies. You might get glimpses of it, but this is a movie where the writer/director clearly understands her subject and exploits her knowledge of that subject to make the movie's point of view as fresh and unique as possible.
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