A Journal for Jordan

This is a good story and should have made for a poignant film and for the first 20 minutes I thought it would. It's just a shame the female lead rather than gain empathy actually got annoying.

Micheal B Jordan is excellent as ever but is let down a bit by the film. It's 20 to 30 minutes too long and there was no need for some of the not so subtle political view points.

Shame after the Great start.

A Journal for Jordan is a bit of an odd one. I actually did enjoy it, but for some reason can't bring myself to give it more than a 5.

The story at times was a little too jumpy, with some quite unnecessary segues which make the film easily 20 minutes too long.

I liked the chemistry between Chante Adams and Michael B Jordan, it was all acted very well. The actual romantic story between them was perfectly well done. Sometimes quite funny, sometimes frustrating, but always sweet. I think that's the problem maybe. It was all very sweet and safe and didn't particularly convey a burning passion and deep love.

Given the name of the film, I feel like there needed to be a greater emphasis on the mother son relationship and the journal itself. This was somewhat pushed to the side and reserved for the final 15 minutes, when it may have been more emotional to have this at the core of the movie. Without this the film mostly plays out like a conventional romcom which means it loses some of its originality.

There isn't really anything to dislike about this film, but equally nothing to love either. I wanted it to be more emotional than it was, so it gets a 5/10. Middle of the road.

7/10 - all the time jumps did not benefit the film and some sharper editing of the scenes would have elevated the film, but I did cry three separate times during it so it definitely will get you in your feels.

This was a bit too melodramatic for my taste. Denzel's previous directorial productions were better. No doubt, Michael B. And Chante Adams delivered, but the flashback sequences were overdone and confusing at times. From the black perspective, the casting was odd. The lead character didn't have one real black friend? Just co-workers/friends? Also, wondered why the child/Jordan looked mixed when clearly, it's hard to imagine Michael B. And Chante producing a kid to look like he did. I noticed that the real life kid has a lighter complexion, but so did the real dad and mom. Guess they had to attach a big name to get it green lit.

Touching true story, but this probably made for a better book than this movie gave it justice. The first half is sooo slow. The pacing is just off, and the movie is way longer than it needs to be at 2:11. The acting, dialogue, and the leads' chemistry were flat. These are typically good actors, so a lot of the fault weighs on the script and direction (sorry Denzel). It's almost a little painful to watch in the beginning, when they are telling the love story, and all the flashbacks/flashforwards didn't help. The film finally picked up in the last third of the movie, when they focused on the mom and now pre-teen son (cutie Jalon Christian), as she started sharing with Jordan, the story of how he was born and his father's time in the army. I had really looked forward to seeing this, but the quality and story being more like a TV/Lifetime movie were disappointing, IMHO! March2022 (*true story*sappy*too long*poorly executed*)