Please note: This was screened in Aug 2018
This melancholic, semi-autobiographical comedy-drama about an African-American family is Spike Lee’s sentimental remembrance of growing up in 1970s Brooklyn, centering on a young girl as she struggles to have a voice in her large, loud, and sometimes embarrassing family.
As her teacher mother, Carolyn (Alfre Woodard), and her jazz musician father, Woody (Delroy Lindo) worry over monthly bills, grade-schooler student Troy Carmichael (Zelda Harris) banters and bonds with her four brothers. Against her will, Troy is sent to her aunt's southern home for a summer visit, but when she returns to her bustling Brooklyn neighbourhood she learns that a family member is gravely ill. Already mature, Troy is forced to face to some very grown-up facts about life and loss.
One of Lee’s warmest, calmest, and most atmospheric works, Crooklyn sees the director taking a whole new look about growing up, drawing on his memories of childhood in 70’s Brooklyn - a time that now seems like a golden age before drugs, guns and gangs would come to rule the inner-city streets.