Harlem in 1957 encapsulates the societal and musical changes that had been coming on since the '20's: Jazz must cede center stage to rock, and people of color must strive to become the heroes of their own stories. Sylvie's Love is a pleasant romantic melodrama that itself captures the demands of changing times for those two worlds.
Although the film embraces the old cliches to further its formula, Sylvie (Tessa Thompson) is a new woman of color, gladly leaving her father's record shop to become an assistant on a TV cooking show while still open to love, most prominently Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha), an aspiring sax player. Although tensions arise from two ambitious lovers is stock stuff in these dramas, Sylvie's Love has an authenticity that elevates the romance into effective drama, partly because writer/director Eugene Ashe guides Thompson and Asomugha to play their characters in the lower register-fewer tantrums, more realistic sensibility.
In fact, so modern is this throw-back romance that the relationship between Sylvie and Robert centers more on what they will do with their lives than on the outcome of their passion. While she struggles with leaving her dream job as a producer (a position rarely ever awarded a black woman at the time) or following his dream to play and eventually lead a combo.
The modern sensibility here is Black, Latinx folk finally getting the chance to equal their white counterparts, and they are faced with the same career decisions modern white couples face in moving on to career success. So, while the film offers up little in new sensibility, it does bring us to date on the enduring struggles for minorities in the good ol' US.
