Somewhere in the Middle

This was a solid film all around. A cut above the standard relationship films. Solid acting, well photographed. What sets it apart is the nuanced script spoken and non spoken. Also, what was refreshing was the subtle take on the sexual dynamics. Nothing seemed forced. The film shows how relationships and really people's lives can turn on subtle manipulation and the slightest turn in how we deal with each other. I would highly recommend this film if interested in relationship type movies. If this is Chris Webber's first foray into features, making choices, decisions and getting involved with projects like these he will have success.

I gave it a chance because it had a 8.6 rating. Previous reviewers (six total) must've had a dog in it, because there is no way this thing deserves that kind of rating. The characters are thin, stiff, and undeveloped. The dialog make you feel embarrassed. The pacing crawls along and makes you want to use fast forward. The plot is uninspired; it's a copy cat of the cinematic technique from Crash where seemingly unrelated threads intertwine, but lacks complexity. There is scarcely any conflict, climax or resolution. It just peters out at the end. And finally the viewer is left with a feeling of... eh, so what. Do yourself a favor, and pass.

This is sincerely a riveting, creative film that I wasn't expecting. Something like this should probably only be in the theater due to how well it was acted, written, shot, etc. The writing and acting was better than anything from DC or Marvel. The film chronicles the lives of 4 people. The editing constructs a narrativizing of the film that sequences shots from each character's vantage. Thus, sometimes you'll see the same scene later in the film, just from a different angle. It subverts typical discretized boundaries of the gendered and sexed bodies that typically delimit the domain of the thinkable. For instance, one character performs porous modes of queer and straight relationship-having. However, the film doesn't stop to magnify this sexual exploration; no more than "Time" would pause itself in the real world due to your or my intermittent contact with queerness. This film also deracializes the knowable by being an all POC cast without "BEING AN ALL POC cast" – That is, POC centrality is an unmarked norm. Overall, this film has further intensified my adulation, enchantment, and attraction for the colored female structure. Specifically it indexes colored female vulnerability, authority, beauty, and intelligence very well and in a way that celebrates women of color. If you are a POC WATCH THIS FILM TO UNLEARN COLONIAL (what sociologist Pierre Bourdieu calls) "doxa" and "distinction". Your "taste" in for non-black/brown/Asian/Native casted films is NOT due to Universal interest and a NEED to NOT center people who look like you. Just because the cast comprises 3 gorgeous WOC and a mediocre looking man with pointers to blackness (yeah I'm hating!!…3 beautiful WOC should be clamoring over ME not his crusty/corny self!), doesn't necessitate it being a bad film, or a "black" film (read: "independent", "unprofessional", "poorly directed"). If you are a POC, don't complain about "OS-CUH So WYYYYTE!!" If you don't support, rate, review, and watch this film and other all POC main-casted films on this platform. Otherwise, "the Academy" is just regarding Blackend, Browned, Asianed, Indigeonized, cultural capital the same way WE regard ourselves (I'm not deprecating other POCs, I'm just stating a basic rational fact).

The pursuit of pleasure and the pursuit of happiness are not the same; where one tends to be a solitary exploit, the other usually begs company. Unlike happiness, pleasure can become an addiction or an obsession. Such pleasure can be sought in a needle, in a bottle, or in the bed. The one night stand is the hallmark of the pursuit of pleasure while the 50- year marriage is the relationship goal we aspire to in our collective pursuit of "happily-ever- after." Most relationships fall somewhere in the middle, but what happens when they don't? What happens when one person is seeking pleasure and the other happiness?

"Somewhere in the Middle" explores this. It recognizes the difference between happiness and pleasure, between love and obsession. Where love makes one strive to be better and seek only the best for their beloved, obsession brings out their worst, and they will seek only possession of the object of their obsession. Billie is unhappy in her marriage and is seeking pleasure. Her pursuit of Alex is devious and resembles obsession. Kofi wants to save his marriage to Billie, but Billie's unhappiness is infectious. He is seeking happiness, but will settle for a distraction. He finds this distraction in Sofia, who is seeking happiness. Alex, Billie, Kofi, and Sofia are all seeking different things in each other and the lies they tell themselves inform the lies they tell each other. Their stories are interwoven and tangled and as the film unravels the perspectives of each, we see what they gain in the pursuit and mostly what they lose. In an ending reminiscent of "In the Company of Men," "Somewhere in the Middle" reveals its characters to be at times likable and at times petty, but never saccharine or unbelievable. The characters are as familiar as their plights. If you want a sequential story with a picture perfect ending, watch "Beauty and the Beast." If you want an intricate exploration of the human condition, watch "Somewhere in the Middle."

The unraveling of the film was slow and plodding, we could see peaks and valleys but no crests. Nothing got resolved, ends with no conclusions. Perhaps that's the "style" the movie mimics but it provides no real satisfaction. At the end, I disliked all the main characters, not because of their shortcomings but because their stories came to an abrupt and unrequited end. It was hard to feel sympathy for any one of the leads or supporting roles. I never got the sense that Billie and Kofi really wanted, needed or were willing to work for their relationship, it felt like the, "meh" Sophia uttered after her and Kofi did the deed...was it meaningless or just a joke? It also had a genuinely disingenuious pretense running through the core...Kofi was belligerent and half-baked about his love for Billie, Sophia was desperate - did we ever believe that Kofi could be her saviour, or that Billie and her work colleague- love interest wasn't more than pure fantasy on the part of Billie? I never got the sense that any of these people really cared where their relationships might go or that they might end, except, of course, for Kofi who seemed hell-bent on saving a marriage that didn't matter. Weak story, decent acting considering the premise but could have lived without this story.