A stylishly moody period drama riffing on love and desire both romantic and professional.

| Feb 20, 2021

Like the great Douglas Sirk melodramas... "Sylvie's Love" is unabashedly sentimental and just gorgeous to behold - but the difference here is the terrific ensemble cast is primarily Black and Latinx.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 20, 2021

Sylvie's humanity is never marginalized. We feel her joy, her pitfalls, and most importantly her love. We see the same for Robert as well.

| Jan 14, 2021

Thompson and Asomugha have undeniable chemistry and are best when in each other's company on screen, but there's a bit too much going on around them.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 12, 2021

Ashe's film gets a bit too flat for the big finale to arrive with the oomph that it should. And yet, as out of sync as you might get with the way that "Sylvie's Love" riffs on its themes, you never want Ashe and his band to stop playing.

| Original Score: B | Jan 12, 2021

Even if the contours of the story feel familiar, it is rare to encounter them shaped and conveyed with such a keen sense of how they should be told to achieve a maximum emotional impact.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 5, 2021

There are bits in here that I thought were a bit clunky... But it has such a heart that I really enjoyed watching this film.

| Jan 4, 2021

Ashe takes the form of the 50s melodrama and recentres it on characters the genre has tended to ignore.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 4, 2021

I cannot think of another film ... that, in keeping with the spirit of the Golden Age of Hollywood, makes such dreamy use of hairstyles.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 1, 2021

Sylvie's Love is an exquisitely styled, swooning, old-school, period Hollywood romance and while it has been described as 'glib' in some quarters, it's Christmas, we've had a rotten year, and it may be just what the doctor ordered.

| Dec 30, 2020

This is more than retro, it's a re-imagination of the past, of the stories and role models that could have been available to Black audiences (and white ones) but weren't. Better late than never.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 29, 2020

The pleasure of this one, partly set in a jazz milieu, is its embrace of all the conventions -- not just the melodrama and the star-crossed lovers but careerist ambition, emergent feminism, cultural pretension.

| Dec 29, 2020

A sublimely versatile and aching performance by Tessa Thompson succeeds in holding interest in this rather long movie about star-crossed lovers who come together and fall apart in the sultry New York summer of 1957.

| Dec 29, 2020

It's love at first sight. That's true for the couple in this romantic period film and for audiences who will be transfixed by the stunningly beautiful footage.

| Dec 28, 2020

"Sylvie's" is a love letter to the delights of a well-told love story.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 28, 2020

That you're seeing this melodrama with Asomugha and Thompson in the leads-something you wouldn't have seen when these types of movies were in vogue-is part of the point.'

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 24, 2020

Every element of Ashe's film is swoon-worthy, from Fabrice Lecomte's lush score and Phoenix Mellow's gorgeous costumes to Declan Quinn's exquisite cinematography and Asomugha's and Thompson's luminous performances.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 24, 2020

Sylvie's Love isn't a knock-off of If Beale Could Talk. The romance charts its own distinct path.

| Dec 23, 2020

The whole movie is so tied up with the old-fashioned way of things you would have to call it pastiche. But be aware - a twist awaits.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 23, 2020

The classically conceived romantic saga, spanning several years in late 1950s and early 1960s Harlem, offers a comforting and velvety cinematic texture even if it is not extraordinary from a narrative standpoint.

| Dec 23, 2020