A Love Story That Struggles To Be More

Forever, now streaming on Netflix, cannot be dismissed as another boy-meets-girl yawn yarn about a lovestricken couple and their tyrannical parents, although it is all of this. But it also aspires to be something more, although I am not quite sure if the series gets where it wants to be.

The characters are all Black. And yes, race IS an issue in the plot, especially in the way the two young protagonists are struggling to get scholarships to get into good colleges. Is this the time to fall in love? The parents don’t seem to think so. The underlining implication is that White kids can afford to let their heart rule their head, and bed.

But the Black better conserve their energy for activities other than romantic/sexual. This subliminal commentary on the Black community in America colours most of the plot. The 8-episode series has innumerable moments when the characters seem to rise above racial tensions. But these moments choose to go back to their reposeful places, like a deflated hot air balloon that would rather stay grounded than float in the sky.

That said, there is plenty to pluck from this languid tree of young life and their mutual strife. The two young leads, playing inexperienced teenagers trying to keep their spirits high and libidos low, are experienced enough to make their characters’ callowness credible.

Lovie Simone as Keisha Clark and Michael Cooper Jr. as Justin Edwards are well cast. They play against one another like two sportspersons on the wrong court negotiating their way to the goal post.

The older generation is also well played. Justin’s mother Dawn (Karen Pittman) is particularly persuasive. Come to think of it, she comes across as a borderline bully and one of the ploys in the plot to keep the young lovers apart.

When Dawn confiscates her son Justin’s phone, he is unable to communicate with Keisha. This is very hard to believe. Almost taking us back to the Romeo & Juliet days. Have these lovebirds not heard of the internet? Phone booths? Internet cafes? Or better still, just cycle down to the loved one’s home.

Elsewhere when on a movie date, Keisha attempts to please Justin physically, he wonders whether she is doing it as he bought her a gift earlier. At times like this I wondered if the screenwriters were embarrassing the characters, or themselves.

Each time the script tries to dive into the couple’s mutual awkwardness it ends up being awkward and clumsy.

Contemporary and sporadically clued into family dynamics, Forever fails to delve into the complexities and dynamics of modern-day love relationships, so much so that the awkwardness between the couple when exploring sexual tensions or simply negotiating mutual ego clashes, begins to appear flawed and awkward on the writing level.