HAV PLENTY
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Miramax Films Director: Christopher Cherot Writer: Christopher Cherot Cast:Christopher Cherot, Chenoa Maxwell, Tammi Jones, Hill Harper, Robinne Lee, Reginald James
When the political correctness movement began it was fashionable for men to express their feminine side, to show their emotions freely, to cry when they felt sad. Then a backlash developed: women decided they weren't so sure that men should show their weaknesses and needs so flamboyantly. The principal character in the delightful comedy of manners "Hav Plenty," Lee Plenty (Christopher Scott), experiments with the fouding ideas of PC, outdoing Woody Allen in putting himself down. He's temporarily homeless, but instead of hiding that actuality to the attractive women he meets one day, he revels in revealing this information as though eager to study their reactions. To his surprise, they are perversely captivated by his honesty and aggressively hit on him to such a degree that he actually must struggle to fend them off.
"Hav Plenty" may be a screwball, lighter-than-air burlesque, but it's filled with so much rapid-fire snappy dialogue and edited so swiftly that it demands your close attention to the words. Narrated by Christopher Scott Cherot (who also wrote, directed, edited and stars in this little gem), "Hav Plenty" is a movie within a movie, a Pirandellian report of a series of events that occurred in the life of its director during the course of a year. Stretching the theme a bit we could almost say that it's an African-American "The Last Days of Disco," focusing on a group of buppies (black, upwardly- mobile professionals) who are self-absorbed and thoroughly into themselves, but who underneath their unbending exteriors display signs of emotional need.
The story opens on Lee Plenty, a New York writer suffering from block, whose lucrative book deal has fallen through just as he had given up his New York apartment. Left without a place to stay, he is invited by a buddy he knew from college, Havilland Savage (Chenoa Maxwell) to her mother's lavish home in Washington D.C. where he is introduced to Hav's unhappily married, beautiful sister and to her brazen friend Caroline. The more Lee puts himself down, the more the women are taken by him. But the materialist Hav, who who has the deepest affection for him, cannot consider him for marriage because he is not financially successful. Hav had just broken up with a flourishing soul singer, Michael Simmons (Hill Harper), who had been caught cheating and who keeps his eye out for admiring women, greeting everyone with the same expression, "Hey! Love 40, baby!"
While exposing the audience to the haughtiness of this upscale group of young black professionals (Hav works in publishing while her dad owns a lucrative software company), Christopher Scott Cherot keeps the best lines for himself. In the tradition of Restoration Comedy, Cherot spoofs the vanity of the class, allowing Caroline to sprinkle French into her conversation and to arrogantly flush a broken toilet despite warning signs that such an action could cause a rank flood.
Woody Allen, then, meets Spike Lee in a congenial comedy that has the excellent Mr. Cherot stopping the action from time to time to address the audience directly, even counseling us that he is about to make a fool of himself. He's an absolute charmer who unfortunately is to lose his delightful innocence once he becomes a success in the professional world.
Rated R. Running time: 105 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
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