LOVE, BROOKLYN – Review by April Neale
Steven Soderbergh knows how to spot a filmmaker with something to say, and with Love, Brooklyn, he’s backed Rachael Abigail Holder’s moody, sun-dappled debut.
Through the gaze of a Brooklyn cyclist who pedals as though the city’s chaotic traffic is nothing more than atmospheric background, Holder offers us a meandering but thoughtful meditation on love, change, and that hazy thing we call “moving on.”
Our lead, Roger (André Holland), is a writer tangled up in the kind of emotional knots only New York and a complicated dating history can tie. As he glides past Bed-Stuy brownstones and cozy cafés, Roger chews on his struggle to capture the city’s post-COVID rebirth while juggling two very different women: Casey (Nicole Beharie), the art-dealer ex with lingering allure, and Nicole (DeWanda Wise), the warm-hearted massage therapist and mother who deserves more than his emotional half-measures.
Love, Brooklyn, sets out to be a valentine to a borough reinventing itself. But Roger’s assignment to chronicle the city feels fuzzy at times, mirroring the film’s tendency to sprawl.
Is it about Brooklyn specifically, or New York at large? The voiceovers muse on the metropolis broadly, while the action stays rooted in Bed-Stuy, grounding itself in real, recognizable spaces like Sincerely, Tommy, a Black-owned coffee shop. Those specific touches sparkle with authenticity and give the story texture.
Roger’s love life, however, is pure chaos. He flirts with rekindling things with Casey over dinner (and a tempting Roy DeCarava exhibit), only to be politely swatted down. Undeterred, he pedals over to Nicole, who welcomes him back into her bed.
It’s a classic push-pull—the lure of nostalgia versus the promise of something new—except Roger isn’t particularly interested in choosing. Instead, he floats, charming and evasive, never quite ready to commit.
His best friend Alan (Roy Wood Jr.) provides some grounding comic relief. Over coffee, Alan admits to his temptations while insisting he won’t betray his wife (Saycon Sengbloh). These male-bonding moments, casual yet sharp, are filled with honesty. You can sense that Holder’s ear for dialogue is on point through the ease between friends hashing out their failures.
Holland, so magnetic in Soderbergh’s superb TV series, The Knick, slips into Roger’s contradictions with ease: the charm, the humor, the frustrating selfishness. He’s the kind of guy who can talk his way through a breakup, a make-up, and an existential crisis, all in the same afternoon.
It feels to the viewer that Holder uses his constant cycling through the borough as a metaphor: Roger’s always moving, dodging obstacles, refusing to stop long enough to make the hard choices. And yet, despite its beauty and atmosphere, Love, Brooklyn wobbles when it comes to payoff. The story spins its wheels, circling the same emotional cul-de-sac without ever finding a resolution worthy of its setup. All neighborhoods change over time, but the classic love triangle seems to remain the same regardless of the players involved.
Like Roger, the film’s direction resists commitment. Brooklyn has hosted richer, sharper love stories that have stood the test of time, like “Moonstruck” and “She’s Gotta Have It.”
