Interesting change of pace for Lee, decent film, but frustrating

Spike Lee’s “Crooklyn” is something altogether unique; here is the only time he’s ever captured the warmth and nostalgia of a family film. Like “Do the Right Thing”, Lee is very cognizant of the activity and goings-on of his Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn neighborhood and how that brings life to his films, but this time he’s also doing things a little different.


In a script written by him, his sister Joie and his brother Cinque, the film plays like a coming-of-age story and possibly autobiographical film for him. Actually, it may be closer to being about Joie, giving us a character who happens to be the long suffering only girl in a family of five kids.


It takes place in the 70’s and focuses on the Carmichael family. Dad Woody (Delroy Lindo) is a musician seeing a decline in the interest of his music thanks to Rock n’ Roll. He refuses to do things any way but his way which leads to financial arguments with mom Carolyn (Alfre Woodard), a teacher, struggling to keep the family afloat herself.


They have five very rambunctious kids of which Troy (Zelda Harris) must fend for herself amongst an army of boys. She’s a feisty tomboy at an age when she’s also wondering about when breasts are going to come in and contending with being a kid with no money in summertime, which means shoplifting at the convenience store.


Being in this family, there is a lot to contend with. Fights are likely to happen any time, like Carolyn trying to get one of the brothers to eat his peas during dinner, or Troy needing to jostle and squirm her way onto the bed her brothers occupy just to watch TV, or Carolyn coming after the kids for even watching television on a school night.


A lot of this is played for laughs and Lee actually earns them in what is one of his few really boisterous and hilarious movies. But he also balances it out with poignancy when Carolyn temporarily throws Woody out of the house until he gets his act together. Troy counseling her father on how to get back into mom’s good graces is just the sweetest.


Outside the Carmichael home, Brooklyn sings with the reminiscence of childhood. Kids play baseball in the street, the girls braid hair and do double dutch, and the boys upset them by swinging a cat right into their circle. Derogatory words are used by both sexes, mostly in jest, and boy-girl making out is must-see viewing for the whole neighborhood.


That’s not to say that things don’t go wrong. The Carmichael’s have a terrible downstairs neighbor (David Patrick Kelly) who makes a lot of noise, smells terrible, and gets into fights with the neighborhood kids over litter. Con Ed also serves a major blow later when it’s revealed they never got paid and now must turn off the electric.


“Crooklyn” is a film that runs on Lee’s memories, and for a while it’s got a good mix of humor and drama. After a while you wish it weren’t so disjointed though. The characters, other than Troy, never really take on any greater depth and the story as a whole just becomes a series of detours.


One of those detours that confused the hell out of me was Troy going to live with her Southern relatives for a while. Not narratively, as not much happens, but mostly because Lee films the whole segment with a distorted lens. What he’s trying to do is show how alien the South is to Troy, but it plays as mostly distracting style.


Yet the cast is quite good. Woodard is great as the haggard wife trying to hold the family together, Lindo’s gentleness and empathy works so effectively in scene after scene, and Harris is a real sassy, tough find who holds her own about as well as can be expected.


In the end you kinda just wish they had more to play than just scene after scene of nostalgia and chaos. There are scenes that ring true but it’s mostly because Lee seems to be throwing a lot of childhood at you all at once. Quieter moments of deeper character depth could have made this more involving. As it is, it can be humorous, lively, and touching but mostly I just felt exhausted by it all.