Spike Lee's low-budget, directorial debut "She's Gotta Have It" ranks as the outspoken African American helmer's best and least pretentious film. This modest but compelling portrait of single black woman, Nola Darling, qualifies as one of the greatest feminist films of the 1980s. The theme of women versus men dominates the action with the corresponding themes of women versus women and women versus society contending for either second or third place. The men fall back on the traditional precedents established by society for women. Consequently, this melodrama exposes as well as explodes the sexual double-standard issue between men and women. Indeed, men cite dating multiple women as their masculine birthright, while a woman must only date one man at a time. "She's Gotta Have It" torpedoes that argument with its unorthodox heroine. Moreover, coming as it did on the last years of "Blaxploitation" movies, Lee's film is refreshing different because none of the men are portrayed stereotypically as either pimps or drug dealers.
The cast, headed by Tracy Camilla Johns, is largely unknown to audiences, but they perform well in this simple. This powerful 84-minute melodrama asks audiences to decide if the leading lady Nola is a "freak." In other words, is Nola a serial sex addict because she juggles three boyfriends that she has sex with in her apartment in New York City. Lee makes excellent use of the technique of breaking the fourth wall-when the various thespians address the audience by looking directly into the camera at us and taking their arguments to us. The heroine has a relationship with a romantically inclined lover Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks), a stuck-up, egotistical performer Greer Childs (John Canada Terrell), and young, snappy street dude Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee). None of the three guys likes each other as they struggle to please Nola. One of Nola's apartment house neighbors is an attractive lesbian Opal Gilstrap (Raye Dowell of "Malcolm X") who tries without success to seduce Nola.
Altogether, "She's Gotta Have it" qualifies as a funny, sexy comedy.
The cast, headed by Tracy Camilla Johns, is largely unknown to audiences, but they perform well in this simple. This powerful 84-minute melodrama asks audiences to decide if the leading lady Nola is a "freak." In other words, is Nola a serial sex addict because she juggles three boyfriends that she has sex with in her apartment in New York City. Lee makes excellent use of the technique of breaking the fourth wall-when the various thespians address the audience by looking directly into the camera at us and taking their arguments to us. The heroine has a relationship with a romantically inclined lover Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks), a stuck-up, egotistical performer Greer Childs (John Canada Terrell), and young, snappy street dude Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee). None of the three guys likes each other as they struggle to please Nola. One of Nola's apartment house neighbors is an attractive lesbian Opal Gilstrap (Raye Dowell of "Malcolm X") who tries without success to seduce Nola.
Altogether, "She's Gotta Have it" qualifies as a funny, sexy comedy.