Non-Spoiler Film Review for About Last Night (2014): A Return to Love’s Embrace

First published February 19, 2014 by Mario Carroll

Last night, I was blessed with a spontaneous outing which took me to a healthy emotional place; one in which I haven’t found myself arrive at easily in recent years. Last night, I saw the film About Last Night (2014), a modernization of the 1986 film, directed by Steve Pink. It is largely an adaptation of the play “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” by David Mamet, co-written by Leslye Headland, Tim Kazurinsky, and Denise DeClue. The main characters are Michael Ealy and Joy Bryant, with Kevin Hart and Regina Hall supporting. (Sidebar: Don’t let the title of Mamet’s play and it’s lineage to this film shy you away from reading this review. Though, I should say as a fair precaution, if you are conservative in your sense of humor and/or your views on physical intimacy, you may have a better time watching a different film.)

As a viewer of About Last Night, you will “[follow] two couples as they journey from the bar to the bedroom and are eventually put to the test in the real world.” Such is a quote from the Internet Movie Database. In its depiction of love, the film is a modern yet classic portrayal of romance, accompanied by almost movie long interjections of unobtrusive and electric comedy. Coming from someone who feels romantic comedies have lost his favor, I cannot help but give my utmost recommendation to any 20-mid 30 something for going to see this film. I especially recommend it for those who may be on the ropes with believing in and fighting for love, or seeking to find their way back to the emotional place like the one I found myself in. Here’s why.

About Last Night reminds me of a time when allowing myself to love with openness and joy came with ease. A time when I felt like I could float, because there was nothing holding me or the person I loved back from sharing in that love we wanted to share. No masks or precautions or emotional withholdings. Vulnerable? But of course! Dangerous?

Absolutely! Yet it was so pure that those thoughts — of vulnerability and danger — didn’t register in our minds. They were completely absent and all I could feel was myself being pulled in; being pulled deep into a place of warmth and openness. It was authentic.

One could almost feel controlled by it. One might almost want to be controlled by it, because with it, one can imagine how the experience of even the most ordinary activities can be renewed to make you feel alive. Like cooking banana pancakes as the sunlight trickles through the blinds on an early Sunday morning; or when simple body movement seems to create a buzzing energy in the air; or even when tedious or mundane activities, like studying, which now seem to sweep by in the calm.

One of the first things I did when I got home after watching About Last Night was to start a new love station on my Pandora. I titled it “Happy Love.” Songs like, “Best of Me” by Anthony Hamilton, “You” by Jesse Powell, and “Sweetest Thing” by Lauryn Hill. Dare I even say, “Adorn You” by Miguel, “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins, or “Sunny” by Musiq Soulchild. …Or “Fortunate” by Maxwell ,“Love Ballad” by Jeffery Osborn, and “Nothing Even Matters” by Lauryn Hill and D’Angelo! I could probably be a DJ right now, because the classic love songs are flowing through my mind. Smooth and jamming songs that vibe with your heart in a joyful way. Happy love. Love that almost seems to emerge from your soul. A love that makes you do something and then look back and say, “Where’d that come from? …I didn’t know I had that in me?” Do things like smile brighter in your spirit than on your face when you make eye contact. A love that’s almost kinetic. Almost ignitable.

About Last Night activated a part of my mind that I didn’t realize I had lost ahold of. I lost such a hold of it, I don’t even know when it was lost. Back then, when it wasn’t lost and maybe before I knew I even had it, love songs were the most flavorful thing to my emotional pallet. It was a time when I couldn’t comprehend how someone could feel love for someone else and not have it exist with a power and force of a flame.

Just as much, I could not comprehend how one could refrain from letting that love burn bright.

Maybe one of the reasons we don’t see this image of love frequently, either in Black films or more broadly in other life depictions, is because it hurts so much when we fail at it. Maybe because we opened ourselves so wide that there were no means to protect ourselves when the pain emerged from the darkness. It’s like gravity taking ahold of you as you are rushed to the ground. The higher you’ve floated, the deeper you can fall. Or like a moth mesmerized by the beauty and warmth of a flame, you can be burned by the fire. True love is blind. Say it plain, Janet Jackson! “That’s the way love goes!” About Last Night could even make the most secure person call into question every past love experience, measure up, and ask, “Did I give up because of an unhealthy relationship, because of a bad relationship, or simply because my good (or amazing) relationship wasn’t perfect?”

Kevin Hart has one of the best lines of the film when, as he reflects on his relationship while accompanied by Michael Ealy at a bar. Hart says with full embrace, assurance, and happiness, “I know my love isn’t perfect, but maybe it doesn’t need to be.” (Sidebar: Or something close to that quote. Watch the film yourself and confirm for me.)

About Last Night sure isn’t a perfect film, but is it possible that it didn’t need to be? Maybe a healthy and functional depiction of young, black, and authentic love, though also difficult love, is what I needed to take me to the right place emotionally? Maybe it’s what you or someone you know needs?

Maybe the film reminded me of something in the past, which is why I am feeling so nostalgic. Maybe I fell in love with love again, all due to a film and in just over a 100 minute period, and now I find myself thirsting for it. Maybe the film ejected the thoughts of vulnerability and danger from my mind, and filled it with a warmth and openness.

As I left the theater, all I could feel was a peaceful joy and happiness; almost afloat. I can’t say that I am heading toward the endings portrayed by the male characters, played by Michael Ealy (with Joy Bryant), or Kevin Hart (with Regina Hall). I can say that, with my mind active and the fire sparked inside again, I can only hope to end in either of such ways. Last night, I was the moth pulled to a flame and I couldn’t help but enjoy it.