Thursday , March 28 2024
Just Wright? Not quite.

Movie Review: Just Wright

One would think that when you have the combined talent of Queen Latifah, Common, and Paula Patton, they would be working with stellar material that would make for an entertaining movie. However, that’s just not the case with the Sanaa Hamri-directed Just Wright.

Queen Latifah plays physical therapist Leslie Wright, who meets the star NBA basketball player Scott McKnight (played by Common) at a gas station after a game one night. He invites her to his birthday party, where she brings her friend Morgan (Paula Patton), whose current dream is to be a trophy wife. After Scott meets Morgan is when the movie begins to not feel like it’s in the realm of the real world.

After a three-month whirlwind romance, Scott proposes to Morgan, and shortly after that he is injured in a game. Leslie is tapped as Scott’s personal physical therapist, and she moves into his house to work on him. Morgan leaves Scott, out of not wanting to be a wife to an injured player. In three months, Leslie has Scott ready to return to the game.

I did appreciate the sweet moments in the movie; for example, in the scene the night before Scott returns to the NBA, he and Leslie are playing the piano and enjoying each other’s company. The chemistry between the two characters in that scene was one of the only believable moments in the entire movie.

My big issue with the movie is the ending. Romantic comedies usually have that fairytale ending that still on some level feels real. In my opinion, the ending of this movie was bizarre and not believable at all. I don’t care how good friends you are, I don’t think that a woman would give her boyfriend her blessing to leave her to go be in a relationship with her friend.

If you check out the movie on DVD, definitely take a look at the extras. There are two vignettes included in the extras along with a pretty funny gag reel.

“The One You Can’t Live Without” talks about the making of the movie. You hear from all the stars and the director. I was shocked to learn that Queen Latifah had a hand in producing the movie.

“Common On The Fast Break” was about Common preparing to play a NBA basketball player for the movie. He talked about playing basketball when he was younger, and you get to see that it is him making the three-point shots in the movie.

My overall feeling is that for all the talent in this movie, the story could have been better written. The actors in Just Wright can definitely do better than a script full of unbelievable material.

Just Wright is available now.

About Kirsten Coachman

Kirsten Coachman is a writer and editor from the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit her long-running music blog, Wait...WHAT, at waitwhatmusic.net. Follow Kirsten Coachman on Twitter: @KirsCoachman

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