Spike Lee directs Tracy Camilla Johns, Tommy Redmond Hicks and himself in this romantic drama about a young New York black artist who needs three very different black men to satisfy her. 

I’m quite the fan of the first half of Spike Lee’s career but his feature debut always avoided me. I couldn’t seem to get a chance to watch it if it was projected in the sky. At last, Netflix has the rights and…. meh! It has clear simple ambitions; the visual ones are achieved confidently, the intellectual ones have dated uneasily. The broad central characters no longer connect, some of their more theatrical interactions come across as distasteful. As debuts go though She Gotta Have It is often formally exciting and emotionally satisfying. He went out there and got it made, and his masterful eye for framing and rhythm shines through the cheap origins.

5