A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Search This Blog

Friday, February 13, 2026

Pretty Red Dress (Dionne Edwards, 2022)

Alexandra Burke and Natey Jones in Pretty Red Dress

Cast: Natey Jones, Alexandra Burke, Temilola Olatunbosun, Rolan Bell, Ben Caplan, Nicholas Bishop, Maria Almeida, Edwin De La Renta, Angie Le Mar, Mark Monero, Dexter Flanders. Screenplay: Dionne Edwards. Cinematography: Adam Scarth. Production design: Phoebe Platman. Film editing: Adonis Trattos. Music: Hugo Brijs. 

In her debut feature, Pretty Red Dress, Dionne Edwards grapples with issues of gender but finally loses her grip on them in an effort to resolve the plot. Just out of prison, Travis (Natey Jones) goes home to his partner, Candice (Alexandra Burke), and their teenage daughter, Kenisha (Temilola Olatunbosun), seeking to start his life again. Candice, a singer who works as a cashier in a supermarket, is trying to make her dreams come true: She's auditioning to play Tina Turner in a new musical, and she and Travis spot the perfect dress in a shop window. It's too expensive for her salary, however, so Travis reluctantly goes to work for his bullying older brother, Clive (Rolan Bell), and buys it for her. The bright red beaded dress seems to help her at the audition, but Travis is fascinated by it too. He yields to an old compulsion and furtively tries the dress on before the mirror, even borrowing Candice's lipstick. It's the beginning of a series of complications in their relationship, especially when Kenisha, who has been confronting her own sexual identity, walks in on him in the dress. Edwards avoids preachiness in her drama, but doesn't find a satisfying outcome for the film, avoiding sentimentality but leaving her characters in suspension. It's well-acted by the entire cast, and Burke's musical performances provide a highlight for the film.  

Posted by
Links: , , ,