isn’t a Jazz musician - he’s a sculp-
tor - but he understands Jazz a
lot more than Gosling’s petulant
piano man. Fonny takes misshapen
lumps of wood and turns them
into artworks, chiselling away at
discarded matter to discover the
beauty within. A friend mocks his
work - he doesn’t understand it,
and frankly neither do I, but I un-
derstand Fonny’s motives, and so
does Jenkins. In the basement of
the Harlem home of his girlfriend
Tish’s (KiKi Layne) family, Fonny
finds a release from the pressure
NJ STAGE - ISSUE 54
of his daily existence. In one lov-
ingly filmed scene, Fonny steps
back and admires a piece he’s
crafted. To those of us who aren’t
familiar with abstract sculpting, it
just looks like a misshapen lump of
wood. It may not make sense to us,
but it makes sense to Fonny, and
ultimately that’s all that matters.
Fonny and Tish’s world is turned
upside down when, not long after
the latter reveals she is carrying
their child, the former is arrested,
accused of the rape of a Puerto
Rican immigrant. The pair use ge-
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