Writing in the Reader in 1991, Jonathan Rosenbaum compared Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever to “a kind of ‘living newspaper,’ where front-page stories exist in proximity to one another without necessarily linking up, and where it’s left to the audience to make some of the vital connections (or not, as the case may be).” This description fairly summarizes much of Lee’s work, for better and for worse. On the one hand, his movies are almost always timely and ambitious; on the other, his usual insistence on confronting as much of the zeitgeist as possible can make them feel overweening and rushed.
Early in the film, Ron’s superiors ask him to go undercover at a lecture delivered by Kwame Ture (ne Stokely Carmichael) at a local black student society. They say they want him to root out any potentially violent radicals, but it’s obvious that they also want to test Ron’s allegiance to the police force—they’re curious whether he’ll respond favorably to any of Ture’s radical rhetoric. Ron takes a shine to the head of the student society, Patrice (Laura Harrier), and after the lecture they start meeting regularly. Lee depicts the ensuing romance sweetly, offsetting the ugliness that Ron encounters in his interactions with the KKK. Moreover, the conversations between Ron and Patrice provide a platform for Lee (who wrote the script with Kevin Willmott, Charlie Wachtel, and David Rabinowitz) to muse on aspects of black culture. During one date, the couple debate whether Shaft or Superfly is more successful when it comes to delivering black identification figures; during another, they return to some of Ture’s teachings.
Directed by Spike Lee. R, 135 min.
