Love, Sex and Eating the Bones

Love, Sex and Eating the Bones is a romantic comedy that's hilarious, sincere and uniquely envisioned from the perspective of black life in Toronto. The plot centres on Michael (Hill Harper), a security guard and aspiring photographer whose pictures have a soul-glow that's bright like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. Unfortunately, he's not as passionate about his art as he is about watching porn. The unconscious addiction only comes to the surface when Michael meets Jasmine (Marlyne N. Afflack), a headstrong feminist with a corporate job, a small-town background and a bad taste towards men that has culminated in celibacy. It's no mean feat to assume that the couple will eventually get it on, but it's the delay in getting there that keeps the viewer hooked. Just as Jasmine starts to unlock her chastity belt, Michael loses the wood and in a brilliant move of cultural self-critique, the film undoes all of the stereotypes of black masculinity: the over-sexed stud, the brother who won't go "downtown" and the myth that black men don't masturbate. It's hard not to fall in love with Harper's performance. He delivers the role with a soulful sense of honesty and humility that's rare in both the mainstream African-American cinema and the romantic comedy genre in general. The same goes for director Sudz Sutherland's portrait of black Canuck culture. Instead of trying to carve out a definitive notion of African-Canadian identity, he opens the concept up to an endless polyphony of dialects and attitudes: patois, Haitian, sub/urban, buppie, b-boy, haute couture and ital. The only weak ingredient in this tasty stew is the cameo by Kardinall Offishall. Though a natural comic in his videos, the T-Dot supastar's first-time film crossover appearance comes off almost as limp as Michael's inactive penis and he could certainly take pointers from the Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson, in a jocular performance as the latter's best friend. Nevertheless, Love, Sex and Eating the Bones is a must-see and is inarguably the sexiest film this country has produced in years, if not ever. (Th!nk)