Crooklyn has that subjective texture by someone of the New York independent school of film-making (which means it's a cool school more often than not), where personal expression through the medium leads directly into, or out of, the creator's own life experiences. It's a direct approach to call it autobiography, which I would imagine it is for not just Spike Lee (who could be seen, more or less, as the one Carmichael kid who wears big glasses and is obsessed with the Knicks), but Joie (the lead Troy perhaps ?) and Cinque (one of the younger kids I'd suppose as the youngest Lee sibling), who all wrote the script. It's about a family getting by and going through the struggles of the small kind (change the channel, turn off the TV, don't bother your sister/brother, did you steal that from him, etc) to the larger issues (parents arguing over money) that many families in urban sections of the cities have to go through every day. Only here the family is sassy, rude, cool, a little square, a little hip, and very identifiable in one aspect or another in just how siblings relate, how the neighbors get on nerves (in this case with a slight racial edge, it is a Spike Lee movie after all), and yet deep down lots of love all around.
The Lee's inject a good deal of humor and warmth for a good 2/3 of the film, even when Spike moves the scene down south where Troy (Zelda Harris) has to stay with relatives for a little while, and Lee takes off the widescreen anamorphic process in order to make it a consistently distorted image. This is actually quite a cool move, if at first a little uneasy, as it goes in and out sometimes of looking like its distorted and then it will look like the characters and set pieces are skinny and such (the fate of the relative's dog, by the way, is one of the biggest, if cruelest, laughs in the whole film). At Crooklyn's best, there's a whole feeling to the proceedings, much like Do the Right Thing- and going back as well to the early work of Scorsese- where just a small section of New York city opens up to the viewer as being as vivid and true as possible that the lack of a usual plot doesn't matter much. Sometimes a scene might not work quite as much as another, or one of the many songs Lee lays on (and there are many, as it's one of the best soundtracks he's presented) overrides what could do without in the scene. But in general these are small quibbles.
The biggest problem that the film has- and it's not without truth to Lee's real life- is the death of mother Carolyn. It happens as soon as Troy comes back from the south that she's in the hospital, and two scenes later she's gone. It's a sudden shift in the story that doesn't really feel as true as it could, almost as if Lee and his sibling writers don't know where to go once Troy gets back except to go towards sentimentality. It's still well-acted, particularly by Delroy Lindo, who overall gives one of his best performances to date as the struggling father of the family, but it's an odd jolt that doesn't rightly click (especially with a bit where a funeral scene is interrupted by what looks like a dream scene involving Spike himself, sporting a big afro, as a target of Troy's). And yet, I wouldn't stop anyone from seeing the Crooklyn, if they want to get to see some of the less politically charged and more personal and bittersweet side of Lee, and for those who have fond memories of New York (and TV or the Knicks) in the 70s.
The Lee's inject a good deal of humor and warmth for a good 2/3 of the film, even when Spike moves the scene down south where Troy (Zelda Harris) has to stay with relatives for a little while, and Lee takes off the widescreen anamorphic process in order to make it a consistently distorted image. This is actually quite a cool move, if at first a little uneasy, as it goes in and out sometimes of looking like its distorted and then it will look like the characters and set pieces are skinny and such (the fate of the relative's dog, by the way, is one of the biggest, if cruelest, laughs in the whole film). At Crooklyn's best, there's a whole feeling to the proceedings, much like Do the Right Thing- and going back as well to the early work of Scorsese- where just a small section of New York city opens up to the viewer as being as vivid and true as possible that the lack of a usual plot doesn't matter much. Sometimes a scene might not work quite as much as another, or one of the many songs Lee lays on (and there are many, as it's one of the best soundtracks he's presented) overrides what could do without in the scene. But in general these are small quibbles.
The biggest problem that the film has- and it's not without truth to Lee's real life- is the death of mother Carolyn. It happens as soon as Troy comes back from the south that she's in the hospital, and two scenes later she's gone. It's a sudden shift in the story that doesn't really feel as true as it could, almost as if Lee and his sibling writers don't know where to go once Troy gets back except to go towards sentimentality. It's still well-acted, particularly by Delroy Lindo, who overall gives one of his best performances to date as the struggling father of the family, but it's an odd jolt that doesn't rightly click (especially with a bit where a funeral scene is interrupted by what looks like a dream scene involving Spike himself, sporting a big afro, as a target of Troy's). And yet, I wouldn't stop anyone from seeing the Crooklyn, if they want to get to see some of the less politically charged and more personal and bittersweet side of Lee, and for those who have fond memories of New York (and TV or the Knicks) in the 70s.