SYNOPSICS
Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998) is a English movie. Gregory Nava has directed this movie. Halle Berry,Vivica A. Fox,Lela Rochon,Larenz Tate are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1998. Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998) is considered one of the best Biography,Drama,Music movie in India and around the world.
In the mid-1980s, three women (each with an attorney) arrive at the office of New York entertainment manager Morris Levy. One is a singer from Los Angeles, formerly of the Platters; one is a petty thief from Philadelphia; one teaches high school in a small Georgia town. Each claims to be the widow of long-dead doo-wop singer-songwriter Frankie Lyman, and each wants years of royalties due to his estate, money Levy has never shared. During an ensuing civil trial, flashbacks tell the story of each one's life with Lyman, a boyish, high-pitched, dynamic performer, lost to heroin. Slowly, the three widows come together and establish their own bond.
More
Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998) Reviews
Entertaining delight!
The filmmakers know you've heard this tale before - true life chronicle of a young singing star's rise and tragic fall - and so they wisely downplay the standard bio trappings and instead focus on a raucously entertaining ride through Frankie Lymon's woman troubles. The smart screenplay revolves around the court battle of Lymon's three wives (yes, three!) over song royalties, leading to vivid (and often humorously contradictory) flashbacks of their lives with the singer. Larenz Tate is magnetic playing the many different sides of the ever-changing lead character, but the film ultimately belongs to Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox and Lela Rochon as the wives. Each is allowed to shine as the trio portrays 30 years of changes in the women's lives, with Fox drop-dead hilarious as the most outrageous of the three. There's beautifully detailed '60s-era cinematography, sets, costuming and musical numbers, plus a side-splitting turn by Miguel Nunez as a young Little Richard. Major issues (such as '60s race relations) are barely glanced at, but what this film lacks in depth, it makes up for ten-fold in entertainment value. A winner!
I liked this movie
I don't believe this movie didn't do better in the ratings. I thought it was clever and entertaining. Halle Berry is beautiful and Larenz Tate was engaging as Frankie Lymon. Again, Gregory Nava is a director to watch for. I didn't realize he also did Selena and that was a movie I also enjoyed. Nothing heavy or slick, no action, fires, explosions, just good story telling about characters and their relationships with one another.
Clever and entertaining. (SPOILERS ENCLOSED)
Why Do Fools Fall In Love is an unexpected gem. In the previews it looks like a movie-of-the-week bio of a long dead celebrity, but this is actually a carefully crafted, well acted and visually fascinating film. With films that claim to be based on actual events, it is important to consider that those events have been interpreted by a writer, director, and actors. Whether this film accurately portrays events in the life of 1950's singing sensation Frankie Lymon is immaterial to the success if the film. The fact remains, whether truthful or fictional, the film is interesting to look at, entertainingly written, and cleverly constructed. Director Gregory Nava has sculpted the film into a richly intertwined series of flashbacks, reminiscences and moments out of pop history. The performance scenes, where we see Frankie Lymon before an audience, either as a raw kid or as a fading icon, are wonderfully integral to the story, and not just blatant rationalization of the sound track cd on sale soon at music stores everywhere. Nava allows the innate energy of the music to flow into the film through lively editing, camera movement, colourful setting and costume. Particularly interesting are the long continuous Steadycam shots and the processing of footage to look like old home movies or 1950's live TV images. Larenz Tate (The Postman) made an explosive impact early in his career with his role of O-Dog in Menace II Society, and then excelled on the short lived TV series South Central. Here, he is considerably reigned in either by the film makers, or by his own sense of how Lymon should be played. His performance, although capable, seems shallow at times and never really delivers any insight to what makes the man tick. The film makers knew that the strength of the story was in the perspective given it by the three women who each claim to be Lymon's widow and entitled to a share in his estate. The character of Lymon, as seen from these different points of view, is at times childishly naive, brutally malicious or tremendously generous and unselfish. The film's best performance is from Vivica A. Fox (Booty Call, Independence Day) who plays Lymon's `first' wife Elisabeth Waters. Fox mixes a wry intelligence with a crude and unpolished demeanor to portray the woman who so loves Lymon in the decline of his career, that she will work as a prostitute to pay for his drug rehabilitation in a private clinic. The tragic irony of her pouring so much of herself into Lymon's empty shell is that she survives the giving while he can never find what he needs in the taking. The two other wives are played very ably by Halle Berry (Bulworth) who appears as Zola Taylor of The Platters and Lela Rochon (Waiting To Exhale) as Emira Eagle. Zola is attracted by Lymon's talent and charisma and is so won over by his sincerity and her own belief in his character that she allows him to destroy all that she has earned as he destroys himself. Emira is the wholesome, God-fearing school teacher who finds the committed romantic in Lymon and manages to help him settle into a simple domesticity for a time before the call of his lost celebrity takes him from her in a last attempt to reclaim his fame. The period detail is vivid and slides up and down a continuum that ranges from deliberately romanticized to unbearably sordid. The film makers have wisely avoided the trap of dwelling on Lymon's heroin addiction. There is very little portrayal of the actual use of drugs, just an examination of their effect on Lymon and on the lives the women who love him.
Very entertaining!
"Why Do Fools Fall in Love" is somewhat flawed and takes quite a lot of artistic liberties, but it's always fun to watch. Larenz Tate isn't entirely convincing as Frankie Lymon--I guess they just cast him because he's real short. The concert scenes and TV appearances where he sings are noticeably lip-synched and look pretty cheesy. But acting-wise Tate did a fine job. Obviously, they didn't really delve into his drug addiction, to keep with its light-hearted feel. So we don't get to experience the heavy drama of Lymon's short life. The actresses were good--Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox and Lela Rochon. Their performances were equally effective and amusing. The great Little Richard has some spirited cameos. He definitely brought the mood of the film to an all-time high. I just wish he could've been in it for longer than 10 minutes. The whole movie basically concentrates on the romantic-comedy portions of Lymon's life--some true, some fabricated. There were some dramatic moments, but they occur mostly towards the end. But I got a lot of laughs and the film just has a fitfully satisfying upbeat tone. Of course, I LOVED the music. I have to admit that was one of the main reasons I enjoyed it so much. "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" is a moderately loose portrayal of Lymon's life, but it makes great entertainment.
Why Do Three Fools Fall in Love
Other commentators seem to feel this is, or should have been, a movie about the life of Frankie Lyman. However, as the title indicates, it is really about three women who fell in love ... with a guy named Frankie Lyman. As the movie brings home fairly early, there is not much about Frankie to love. He is portrayed as a shallow, self-centered fool, with as little understanding of the music business as of the women he scams into being his wives. Did Frankie have raw talent? Of course he did. Did Frankie do anything to develop this raw talent into an enduring musical career? No evidence of that. So much for Frankie. Larenz Tate plays him fairly well on stage, and rather flat off stage. We are not given a clue as to what the attraction may have been. And, since two of the women were relatively unaware of his celebrity status when they were first taken with him, and the third had a celebrity status of her own, we expect the movie to answer the title question. The women do not entirely succeed in this, but they are terrifically watchable while they try. Halle Berry is great as Zola Taylor, singer with the Platters. Viveca Fox is almost as good as the home girl who turns hooker to support Frankie, and Lela Rachon is perfect as the goodie-two-shoes last wife, a God-fearing and educated working woman. The music scenes are good, and the courtroom scenes are outrageously unrealistic. This would have been a better movie if they had not specifically based the story on Lyman, but only alluded to him. In this manner, the Hollywoodization of the story would have been less noticeable. Unfortunately, realizing that such a course would inevitably preclude using the Lyman hits, they chose to make this a triography of the wives, and allow them to play off Tate's weak Lyman persona. All in all, a good couple of hours of enjoyment that is not too compelling. When it was over, we found ourselves asking, "Why DID these three fools fall in love?"