DISAPPEARING ACTS (2000)

Grade: C

Director: Gina Prince Blythwood

Screenplay: Lisa Jones

Starring: Wesley Snipes, Sanaa Lathan, Regina Hall, Lisa Arrindell Anderson, Clark Johnson, Q-Tip, John Amos, CCH Pounder, Kamaal Fareed, Michael Imperioli

Though DISAPPEARING ACTS may be written for the screen by Lisa Jones, and directed by Gina Prince Blythwood (LOVE AND BASKETBALL), it clearly bears the mark of its source, novelist Terry McMillan (WAITING TO EXHALE, HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK). She who pens buppie soap operas for black housewives, sort of performing the same service Danielle Steele does for white ones. Once I attempted to read her novel, HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK (hasty explanation: it was a smoggy winter day and the cover looked invitingly tropical and I was in the mood to be somewhere else so I picked it up, 'kay?) and as romantic a mode as I was in, I couldn't make it past page 50. Her writing is aimless, her stories (this is judging from the adaptations I've seen of hers, not her novels) simplistic urban fairy tales that present the troubles of everyday life (in DISAPPEARING ACTS we get unplanned pregnancy, addiction, spousal abuse, among others) but don't attempt to delve into them, as if simply presenting such concerns were enough to make a flimsy story weighty. Those concerns are treated as little road bumps, brought up, then quickly discarded because all that matters is love.

The most heralded of McMillan's adaptations is WAITING TO EXHALE, in which a bunch of attractive upper middle class black women spend about two hours disparaging the opposite sex and, occasionally, white women. It's best moments were the throwaways, one of those being Wesley Snipes' extended cameo as a man with a dying (white) wife but the overall feeling was that of a trash-talking soap opera, glorified by the critics because it featured black actors doing something other than firing semi-automatics at each other.

I suppose it's appropriate that DISAPPEARING ACTS premiers on HBO rather than at a theatre near you. Not only is it the sort of simplistic romantic drama that rarely gets made anymore, it's aimed primarily at black audiences, the kind of crowd who's assumed to be more into bloodshed than romance. (Oddly enough, crappy white romances, like AUTUMN IN NEW YORK, have no trouble getting into theatres, while crappy black ones like this are forced to go directly to cable). The film relies almost entirely on the chemistry of its stars Wesley Snipes and Sanaa Lathan, with most of its two hour running time spent in their company. As is to be expected from any product bearing the McMillan name, DISAPPEARING ACTS is little more than a glossy soap. It's charcters go through the motions: they constantly fight, then make up, ad mucho nauseum, by which we point we don't even want to see them together. The ending, which is supposed to be optimistic, feels sad and forced because its outcome seems to be exactly what the picture had been struggling against.

Snipes stars as Franklin, a charmer cum hustler who charms (hustles?) his way into singer-song writer Zora's (Sanaa Lathan) heart. From there they begin a tumultuous (and repetitive) relationship falling into a pattern of love montage, escalating argument, make-up, game of Scrabble, in between which Franklin loses several jobs and gets drunk and belligerent, putting on hold Zora's song writing career. Early on we sort of want the attractive characters to get together. We like them, but after about an hour into the film we begin to feel that maybe they aren’t right for each other, and by that point it's hard to care, with the only thing keeping us up is some forceful acting courtesy of Snipes. A particularly powerful moment occurs when he comes home inebriated and forcefully edges into Lathan, raspily proclaiming "Liar" at her, after she failed to tell him that she was pregnant. Then the actor seamlessly moves into insecure pleading: "Don't kill our baby". It's a tough scene, one that is emotionally unreal, but Snipes doesn't step wrong once.

It's the film that steps wrong, appearing as confused and as giddy in love as its characters, though it doesn't seem to realize that it's in love with an abusive relationship. When Franklin tears Zora's apartment up with a hammer, we want to at least see this addressed. The alcoholism? Nothing. This film swears by the motto "forgive and forget" or rather "just forget". DISAPPEARING ACTS is reminiscent of the unmatchable STORY OF US (another celebrity shouting and make-up match). It's better than that film mostly because Snipes is far more charming and interesting than Bruce Willis was in STORY OF US, but his character is just as ill-defined. Lathan is believable too as a strong women pulled in by the wrong man's charm. Though the film doesn’t seem to acknowledge that Franklin is the wrong man.

There's a nice edge to Wesley Snipes the actor, who, even at his most romantic, always seems to hint at danger. It's the sort of thing that an actor like Denzel Washington, as good as he is, wouldn't be fully convincing at. When Washington plays "threatening" we’re often aware that it's an act, as in HE GOT GAME, his performance as a street hustler was less raw than obviously calculated; the purposeful ghetto mispronunciations, the over the top "power" gestures. Both actors' careers began on a similar trajectory, both doing fine work in minor roles before finding great roles in Spike Lee's decent jazz drama MO BETTER BLUES, though it was Snipes who was the most memorable his cool sexuality overtly on display as the decadently dressed hipster, Flip, but it was Washington who broke out as the big star. I think it's because Washington seems safer, especially to white audiences, his sexuality more mainstream, like that of a Sidney Poitier while Snipes is more Jim Brown, and that intrinsic subversivness, while maybe not palpable to everyone, is what makes him, for me, a more interesting performer.

Some have regarded this as a complex relationship movie because it actually shows a black couple struggling with love as white couples often do in the movies, but take away all the moments of melodrama and all you're left with is NINE AND A HALF WEEKS-like hokum. DISAPPEARING ACTS is similar to that picture, though without the aggressive sexuality and with a friendlier ending. But the Snipes character is especially reminiscent of the Mickey Rourke character, both outwardly charming, flawed characters stuck in dull soap operas.

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