Meet the parents

>> Love Come Down strains to examine family and romantic ties

by SIOBHÀN O'CONNOR

The well-worn two-tormented-brothers plot is dragged out again in Love Come Down, Clement Virgo's latest film. That wouldn't necessarily be such a bad thing, except that the efforts made in the film feel strained and flat. Adding to the disappointment is the fact that Virgo's first feature, Rude, was such a tour de force.

Love Come Down follows two half-brothers who share the same mother. One son (Martin Cummins) is a white boxer, the other a stand-up comedian of mixed race (Larenz Tate). Early in the film, their various predicaments are laid out. All of their issues, it seems, are rooted in their rather messy parentage. Flashbacks reveal that mom, furious about getting smacked by her black mate (not to mention him getting the pre-pubescent kids stoned), apparently murdered pop in a rage.

The bros have a ton of other emotional baggage. Tate is frustrated by his romancing of a local singing sensation (played well by R&B chanteuse Deborah Cox), as well as his painful efforts at getting a gig at a raunchy stand-up venue. He soon finds that his parental complex is matched by Cox's: a Jewish couple adopted her, and her mother is dying. This forces her to confront her need to know who her real parents are, and Tate helps her in this search.

Meanwhile, Tate is bottoming out on various drugs. Tate and Cummins lock horns over fairly mysterious issues and it becomes quite clear that something in their past, consciously remembered or not, is causing their bond to be tested. Which leads, fairly predictably, to the final revelation about exactly what happened to their father figure years earlier. Did mom kill him, as had become family lore (and criminal record)?

With things this underdeveloped, it's hard to care. The film has too many plot deviations, a number of supporting characters, various story digressions, with a lack of depth to all of the above. (Not to mention one colossal casting blunder, with Sarah Polley playing the least convincing nun (!) since Mary Tyler Moore played one opposite Elvis in Change of Habit.)

It's a disappointing entry from an otherwise gifted director. I trust it's a minor misstep and look forward to Virgo's next film.

Love Come Down opens Friday, March 9