A Journal for Jordan (2021)

Despite her best intentions, journalist Chanté Adams falls in love with and begins a family with soldier Michael B. Jordan. Before he is deployed to Iraq, she implores him to write in a journal for their son to share whatever wisdom he feels he has to give. I had mostly watched this because I like the Black-centric stories director Denzel Washington chooses to deliver. Unfortunately the final product here fails. The only times this one pulls away from Lifetime film territory is when Jordan is on screen and that is only because of his natural charm. The characters across the board are extremely one-dimensional. The child actor and Adams’s friend group particularly are particularly cringey in their renditions. The story flip flops through time without any focus, eventually falling on a weird wishy-washy pro-military stance that the rest of the film seemed to be avoiding.