Issa Rae’s New Romantic Drama Has Us So Hype For Valentine’s Day

We would never admit it because we’re gangstas, but we love a good romantic drama. In fact, Issa Rae‘s The Photograph trailer is right up our alley. Written and directed by Everything, Everything’s Stella Meghie, The Photograph follows Mae Morton (Rae) –a museum curator reeling from the death of her estranged mother, famed photographer Christina Eames (Chanté Adams). Though her mother was world-renowned, she always kept Mae at a distance which caused tension between them. When Mae uncovers a photograph tucked away in her mother’s old safety deposit box she begins to discover who her mother truly was.

However, in her quest to dig up the truth of her mother’s past, she encounters journalist Michael Block (Lakeith Stanfield), who is doing his own research into Christina’s life and career. You might be rolling your eyes thinking — this is just another romance movie. But, that’s where you’d be wrong. Though romantic comedies have reemerged to some degree in Hollywood, they aren’t as prominent as they used to be in the ’90s and the mid-2000s, especially with people of color at the center.

Likewise, romantic dramas that center people of color are almost non-existant in Hollywood today. With this film, Meghie, Rae and Stanfield are looking to put the spotlight back on romance films and romantic relationships between Black people in particular.

Y’lan Noel, Chelsea Peretti, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Jasmine Cephas Jones, Lil Rel Howery, Teyonah Parris, Rob Morgan, Courtney B. Vance and Kingsley Ben-Adir. also, star in The Photograph which is set to hit theaters Valentine’s Day 2020.