Why You Should See Jumping the Broom

While casting my vote for the cutest kid contest on WGCI, I saw an advertisement for the new movie Jumping the Broom and an opportunity to win tickets to an advanced screening. I’m not one of those lucky people who seem to win things, but my luck changed and I won a pass for two to see Jumping the Broom, a romantic comedy about two families from opposite sides of the economic divide that come together for a weekend wedding on Martha’s Vineyard. For all my Roger Ebert-like readers, it’s not a film for critical analysis; this one is for pure enjoyment.

No complex characters, no multiple layers to peel back; it is typical boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl reunite for the happily-ever-after-ending that fairy tales are made of. I loved it because I needed it.

Here are five reasons why you should skip on over to your nearest movie theater and see it this weekend.

1. With so much drama, trauma and just plain old bad things going on in the world, for an hour and 53 minutes you can kick back, relax and enjoy. It’s a feel good movie.

2. In a world gone mad, stripped of too much of its goodness and goodwill toward mankind, this is a morality tale when far too many of us are filing for moral bankruptcy. Who can’t use a moral deposit now and then?

3. It’s not a Tyler Perry movie. Enough said.

4. It’s a depiction of the power of love coming on the heels of another fairytale wedding. That one was real, this one’s not, but hey - we can pretend. Yes, the ending is predictable. But who isn’t a sucker for a sappy, happy ending? If you’re not, you need to go back and re- read reasons 1 and 2.

5. For my fellow African-Americans, we have been whining in public and private about the destructive images of black people, and some of us have bought into the hype and fueled the fire about our lack of love as men and women. Disarm yourselves and bask in the glory of the beauty of black love.

See you at the theater!