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— by Ben Cosgrove
It's a topic that even today, in the allegedly enlightened 21st century, still gets some people worked up and freaked out more quickly and reliably than any other. If it comes up in conversations, it's usually referred to as "interracial romance," but it's not exactly the romantic part of the equation that gets under people's skin. What the whole brouhaha boils down to, ultimately, is sex: interracial sex. Now, with the issue again under the microscope in the upcoming and (thankfully) lighthearted "Guess Who," we thought we'd take a look at some of cinema's most insightful portrayals of interracial relationships.
Not a mere remake, but a heartfelt re-imagining of 1967's groundbreaking "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (see below), "Guess Who" provides more evidence, if any were needed, that the more things change, the more they remain the same ... and that the heart, as always, has reasons of its own.
 "Monster's Ball" (2002)
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Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry star as Hank and Leticia, two of the most fully realized (i.e., flawed, unheroic, believable) characters to show up in American movies in quite a while. Joined in grief and confusion by their associations with people working or simply waiting on Georgia's death row, Hank and Leticia find solace in each other almost by default. Theirs isn't a grand, earth-shaking passion. Instead, they move toward each other like two damaged planets, with the gravity of their mutual situation pulling them closer. An Oscar for Halle, and man, did she earn it.
"O" (2001)
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You get the sense, watching "O," that Shakespeare would probably have approved of this adaptation of "Othello." Featuring Mekhi Phifer, Julia Stiles and Josh Hartnett playing teen versions of the Moor, his soul mate Desdemona and the murderously false friend Iago, respectively, "O" is a "message movie" that achieves the near-impossible: it enlightens and entertains. Extra kudos to Hartnett, whose performance as the back-stabbing Hugo is perfectly smarmy and charming. What more can we ask of such a snake?
"Crazy/Beautiful" (2001)
Like "O," "Crazy/Beautiful" is one of those "teen" movies that actually manages to respect its audience's intelligence while never failing to remember that adolescence is the best of times, and the worst of times. Kirsten Dunst is Nicole, the hard-drinking, sexually adventurous daughter of a congressman; Jay Hernandez plays Carlos, a serious, hard-working young Mexican-American who dreams of attending the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Their attraction to one another is immediate, and the elemental differences in their upbringings and outlooks only add to the film's genuine sense of tension and discovery.
"Restaurant" (1998)
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A movie that came and went without making too many waves when it was first released, "Restaurant" is a smart (if overly literary) slice-of-life flick that deserves to find an audience in its second incarnation on DVD. Adrien Brody provides a pitch-perfect performance as an alcoholic playwright and bartender in Hoboken, New Jersey. He hooks up with gorgeous waitress Jeanine (Elise Neal), but one gets the sense that what he's really trying to do is either forget or remember (maybe both?) his love affair with Leslie (played by the Fugees' Lauryn Hill). The movie doesn't hit you over the head with the racial aspects of the story — but they're there, and painful, nonetheless.
"Mississippi Masala" (1992)
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This is the sort of movie that makes you wish that the protagonists would actually have kids in real life, just so we could all see how insanely beautiful they'd turn out. The plot is fairly straightforward — Demetrius (Denzel Washington) and Mina (Sarita Choudhury) meet, fall in love, and their families and communities aren't happy about it — but the authenticity of their passion for each other makes for a classic story of star-crossed lovers.
"Zebrahead" (1992)
Imagine "Romeo and Juliet" set in Detroit, and you have an idea of the basic premise behind "Zebrahead." Which isn't necessarily a bad thing: after all, misunderstood-teens-in-love is an entertainment staple. Michael Rapaport plays Zack, a Jewish kid who acts, talks and walks black, and who falls in love at first sight with his best friend's cousin Nikki (N'Bushe Wright). At times the film comes across as heavy-handed, but generally it's a convincing look at what it means when two people from different sides of life only have eyes for each other.
"Jungle Fever" (1991)
A characteristically uneven offering from Spike Lee, "Jungle Fever" has more than a few moments of brilliance, but they're often sandwiched between scenes that feel downright fraudulent. What makes the movie worthy of watching, though, is the fierceness of the performances: Wesley Snipes is electric as the married, preposterously named architect, Flipper Purify; Annabella Sciorra is excellent as the white woman with whom he has an affair; and the rest of the cast — Ossie Davis, John Turturro, Samuel L. Jackson, etc. — are merely perfect. The fact that there is zero chemistry between Snipes and Sciorra is a little problematic, but that's par for a Spike Lee joint.
"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967)
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There's little to say about this American classic that hasn't already been said many times before. But still it's worth noting that, almost 40 years after its release, the sensibilities behind many of the lines spoken by the movie's main characters could just as easily be uttered by parents and their children today. Does that make it timeless? Or does it simply illustrate how far we've come in matters of race, and how far we still have to go? Anyway, it's got Poitier and Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (in his last role) and several scenes that have rightly entered into Hollywood legend. In many ways, it's hopelessly old-fashioned and quaint, but it's also still, after all these years, a brave and optimistic piece of moviemaking. And there's nothing wrong with that.
"West Side Story" (1961)
Yep, here we have yet another retelling of "Romeo and Juliet," but this time the talent involved — Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise, etc. — happens to be some of the greatest that Hollywood ever assembled, and the result is a movie that makes other musicals look and feel like dusty old cardboard. Sure, Natalie Wood wouldn't be our first choice to play the beautiful Puerto Rican heroine, Maria, and Richard Beymer (Tony) is kind of goofy and ungainly and smiles like a horse, but when a love story can compete with those dance sequences and rumbles between the Jets and Sharks, you know that somebody's done something right.
"Shadows" (1959)
This utterly original John Cassavetes movie is the cinematic equivalent of the Velvet Underground's first record: Hardly anyone saw it when it was first released, but one gets the sense that everyone who did then ran out of the theater and started making movies. Credited with influencing filmmakers as diverse as Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee and too many others to mention, "Shadows" pretty much invented indie filmmaking in the United States; its touching, harsh, documentarylike portrayal of a doomed interracial relationship playing itself out on the streets and in the jazz coffeehouses of New York is like no other movie of its time, and its raw, rough-edged energy has hardly been matched by any film since.
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Photos: Lion's Gate Films
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