Mixing Nia

A thoroughly enjoyable film about a mixed race woman finding her roots in New York City. Nia is a successful copywriter living a white yuppie life style. When she is asked to make an advertising campaign selling beer to ghetto kids, she leaves in disgust and embarks on a journey of self discovery. Along the way she acquires her first black boyfriend as well as a number of other admirers. And finally finds who she really is.

This film is beautifully shot in NYC and uses some very interesting locations. The pace of the film is well set and you never get the feeling that when is it going to end. What I found very admirable was that it was not and did not try to be judgemental about where a mixed race person should belong and comes across as just be yourself. The romance is cute and the funny parts are genuinely funny. Altogether an excellent film... now if only it was available on DVD ;-)

Dad is white, mom is black. Nia grew up and went to school in the New Jersey suburbs, and doesn't know anything about living and being black. She tries a couple of boyfriends. One has the map of africa in his bedroom, the other is a preppy ivy-league type. Asked to choose, she can't. Help comes from a house-mate musician, who plays different instruments to her hears and eyes shut, asking her to choose the right sound for her. And after she chooses and opens her eyes, she asks what instrument it was, and adding more insecurity, it was a Senegalese musical instrument. Eventually, Nia finds her voice. Was shown in Pittsburgh in 1999 at the second annual afro-american film festival.

Nia is a mixed race woman working in an ad agency who leaves when forced to market beer to young inner-city blacks. She sets out to write a novel and, by doing so starts on a voyage of discovery regarding her own identity.

Karen Parsons is not a great actress - she's probably best known for Hilary in "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" series, however here she does manage to lend an air of believability to her mixed up character. Changing her impression of her identity in line with her men: she is passionately pro-black when dating her Afro-American studies professor while care free and yuppie-style when dating her work colleague. She manages to convey the roots of her confusion without having to overplay any scenes in particular.

Supporting cast are uniformly great - Isaiah Washington stands out as the professor who may be more racially intolerant than her racist colleagues. None of the characters are overly stereotyped (in fact black stereotypes are made fun of in comic interludes) but rather come across as ordinary people who gradually expose themselves to be as messed up about race as Nia is.

The overall message that each person should find there own identity based on your experience rather than basing yourself on a culture or a lifestyle is simply made but is not done in a patronising way - in fact when the point is spelt out for the audience we've already been allowed to decide this for ourselves.

This is not rocket science - a gentle story that has a set point to make and makes it in a comic, entertaining and rewarding manner.

The thing that struck me most about this film, was that it was a very personal look into a someone's life. On the surface, that would make it inaccessible to most, but in fact the exact opposite is true. It touches on some universal truths about finding one's way (or one's voice) in the face of so many conflicting influences. Although, I wouldn't dare relate my own experiences to those of Nia. It's nice to see a film that can speak to many and few at the same time.

"Mixing Nia" tells of a "color blind" half black, half white New York City career woman who wrestles with her identity in a race conscious world. A light drama with "low budget indie" written all over it, "Mixing Nia" is flawed but manages a nominally good story, screenplay, and script. A little flick whose heart is in the right place and a good stop for channel surfers.