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The Photograph Movie Review

The Photograph is a 2020 romantic drama film directed by Stella Meghie and starring Issa Rae and Lakeith Stanfield. It’s a romantic and well acted, but otherwise weak movie.

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“My mother wasn’t very good at love.

What if I’m just like her?“

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It follows the estranged daughter of a famous photographer who falls in love with the journalist who is investigating her late mother’s life. The main problem here is the plot. It’s simply not all that interesting. It tries to work on multiple levels – as both a drama and a romance – but it unfortunately failed at both, especially in the dramatic department as the twist is not all that interesting and the script is far from good.

As for the romantic department, it actually worked to a degree. Unfortunately, it was sidelined in the second half for all that uninteresting drama, but the first half is very sweet, very sensual and actually quite romantic. The two actors share wonderful chemistry and they both deserve much better material than the one they got here.

Lakeith Stanfield is very suave, and although clearly seemingly creepy at first, he is ultimately a likable presence as the character is lifted to greater heights due to his very strong performance. Issa Rae got her first big role in this movie and hopefully that leads to more big screen roles for her as her performance is lovely here. The scenes with the two just talking and flirting were the highlights with the whole rest of the movie being infinitely inferior. The dialogue is the film’s strongest suit for sure.

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The Photograph does have solid cinematography, it looks cool and modern, and it’s accompanied by a very sensual, sexy approach. The movie and its couple are hot undoubtedly, but everything surrounding them is mild with all the other characters being weakly realized.

The Photograph is very good when focusing on its central romance as Lakeith Stanfield and Issa Rae are both excellent here and they share great chemistry. However, it failed in the dramatic department as the script is quite weak and the entire second half is thus quite inferior to the first more interesting and more sensual one.