Ménage à quatre

The filmmakers know you've heard this tale before - true life chronicle of a young singing star's rise and tragic fall - and so they wisely downplay the standard bio trappings and instead focus on a raucously entertaining ride through Frankie Lymon's woman troubles. The smart screenplay revolves around the court battle of Lymon's three wives (yes, three!) over song royalties, leading to vivid (and often humorously contradictory) flashbacks of their lives with the singer. Larenz Tate is magnetic playing the many different sides of the ever-changing lead character, but the film ultimately belongs to Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox and Lela Rochon as the wives. Each is allowed to shine as the trio portrays 30 years of changes in the women's lives, with Fox drop-dead hilarious as the most outrageous of the three. There's beautifully detailed '60s-era cinematography, sets, costuming and musical numbers, plus a side-splitting turn by Miguel Nunez as a young Little Richard. Major issues (such as '60s race relations) are barely glanced at, but what this film lacks in depth, it makes up for ten-fold in entertainment value. A winner!

An interesting (but flawed account) of the battle over pop star Frankie Lymon's estate by three women claiming to be his widow...

The story portrayed here is actually semi-fictitious, but the background story of Frankie's life is entirely true.

From his starts as a fresh-faced Harlem kid to a haunted drug addict, Larenz Tate (one of the most underrated talents in Hollywood) shines as dreamer Frankie, and does well to give perspective to Frankie's conflicting attitudes towards his relationships with the women, which the script muddles- Frankie appears shallow yet introspective at the same time.

Halle Berry tries to make more of her understated and thin role as Zola Taylor, wifey no. 2, but provides an adequate performance.

The most developed of the three female characters, is Elizabeth Waters (Viveca A. Fox). Loyal yet dishonest, gritty Elizabeth is the only character aside from Frankie that seems to be real. This is a combined effort by the characterisation and the performance by Fox.

And Lela Rochon does very well cast against type, as a school marm dragged into this battle. Rochon clearly understands the character well, and manages to make her mark on the story despite being developed late into the film.

The period detail of this piece is well captured over the 20-odd years that this story is set (particularly the performances of Frankie with the Teenagers), and even the small scenes which provide insight into Frankie's younger days.

The main flaws of this film lie essentially in the struggle to develop some of the themes. As mentioned earlier, Frankie's reasons for bigamy are not established at all or how he copes this with this, or whether one of the wives in particular is lying about the legitimacy of her marriage.

Some of the characterisation is a bit thin, caused by some of the later events of the film and because this deep story of fame, loss, betrayal and torment has such a muddled structure the whole film comes across as sketchy by the end which clearly was not intended.

But never the less this is an adequate tribute, to the world of fame and its inevitable clingers-on, and those just caught up in the action. This will never be top of its genre however...

I enjoyed a lot of this movie but I would have liked a tad more insight into the life of Frankie Lyman. In one scene, he talks about his abusive father, but other than that, there was little revealed about him. I understand it was mostly from his wives point-of-view, but it have helped the story along. In addition, you couldn't tell which of the wives was spinning a tale in order to get a larger settlement.

The large cast was very talented and I especially appreciated that the make-up on the three women was not overdone to make them age. All in all, I enjoyed it very much, but it could have been much better.

Other commentators seem to feel this is, or should have been, a movie about the life of Frankie Lyman. However, as the title indicates, it is really about three women who fell in love ... with a guy named Frankie Lyman. As the movie brings home fairly early, there is not much about Frankie to love. He is portrayed as a shallow, self-centered fool, with as little understanding of the music business as of the women he scams into being his wives.

Did Frankie have raw talent? Of course he did. Did Frankie do anything to develop this raw talent into an enduring musical career? No evidence of that. So much for Frankie. Larenz Tate plays him fairly well on stage, and rather flat off stage. We are not given a clue as to what the attraction may have been.

And, since two of the women were relatively unaware of his celebrity status when they were first taken with him, and the third had a celebrity status of her own, we expect the movie to answer the title question. The women do not entirely succeed in this, but they are terrifically watchable while they try.

Halle Berry is great as Zola Taylor, singer with the Platters. Viveca Fox is almost as good as the home girl who turns hooker to support Frankie, and Lela Rachon is perfect as the goodie-two-shoes last wife, a God-fearing and educated working woman.

The music scenes are good, and the courtroom scenes are outrageously unrealistic.

This would have been a better movie if they had not specifically based the story on Lyman, but only alluded to him. In this manner, the Hollywoodization of the story would have been less noticeable. Unfortunately, realizing that such a course would inevitably preclude using the Lyman hits, they chose to make this a triography of the wives, and allow them to play off Tate's weak Lyman persona.

All in all, a good couple of hours of enjoyment that is not too compelling. When it was over, we found ourselves asking, "Why DID these three fools fall in love?"

"Why Do Fools Fall in Love" is somewhat flawed and takes quite a lot of artistic liberties, but it's always fun to watch. Larenz Tate isn't entirely convincing as Frankie Lymon--I guess they just cast him because he's real short. The concert scenes and TV appearances where he sings are noticeably lip-synched and look pretty cheesy. But acting-wise Tate did a fine job. Obviously, they didn't really delve into his drug addiction, to keep with its light-hearted feel. So we don't get to experience the heavy drama of Lymon's short life. The actresses were good--Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox and Lela Rochon. Their performances were equally effective and amusing. The great Little Richard has some spirited cameos. He definitely brought the mood of the film to an all-time high. I just wish he could've been in it for longer than 10 minutes. The whole movie basically concentrates on the romantic-comedy portions of Lymon's life--some true, some fabricated. There were some dramatic moments, but they occur mostly towards the end. But I got a lot of laughs and the film just has a fitfully satisfying upbeat tone. Of course, I LOVED the music. I have to admit that was one of the main reasons I enjoyed it so much.

"Why Do Fools Fall in Love" is a moderately loose portrayal of Lymon's life, but it makes great entertainment.