Christy by Request — Graffiti Bridge

• 5 Mar 2018
• Posted by Christy
•   Christy by Request

When I came up with this new “Christy by Request” feature, I agreed to embrace the randomness of it. That’s part of the fun: You guys suggest movies for me to see, Nicolas chooses one from a giant, plastic bowl, and that’s what I have to review. Whatever happens, happens. Sometimes, they’re going to be great, as was the case with my debut entry last week, “Bicycle Thieves.” But clearly, they can’t all be classics.

Which brings us to this week’s Christy by Request movie, “Graffiti Bridge,” a suggestion from a follower named Theo in Kentucky who goes by the Twitter handle @TeddyKGB. (I’m assuming he’s a big “Rounders” fan.) In case you haven’t seen it, this is the sequel to “Purple Rain” which Prince wrote, directed and stars in and for which he wrote all the music. Now, I love Prince and I loved “Purple Rain.” It came out in 1984, a formative, angsty time for 12-year-old me. My friends and I listened to the soundtrack — which features such instant classics as “When Doves Cry,” “I Would Die 4 U,” “Baby I’m a Star” and the title track — constantly. We giggled at the naughtiness of “Darling Nikki.” We danced along with Morris Day and The Time to “Jungle Love” and “The Bird.” I even saw Prince in concert during the “Purple Rain” tour at The Forum here in L.A. — with my parents, which was super awkward when he was practically naked and humping a bathtub, for example.

And I don’t know how my friends and I got into see the movie “Purple Rain” in a theater, given that it’s rated R — I’m guessing I have my permissive mom to thank for that — but somehow, we did. Prince was electrifying. Not the greatest actor, perhaps, but he had that “thing,” that star quality.

Six years later, he made the sequel to “Purple Rain,” guiding it as his vision both in front of and behind the camera. “Graffiti Bridge” came out in November 1990, a time when I was too busy being a drunk sorority girl to keep up with all the new releases the way I do now. For whatever reason, I missed it. And looking back, it seems a lot of other people did, too — or at least wish they had. “Graffiti Bridge” stands at a woeful 16 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and it earned five Razzie Award nominations including worst picture, director and actor.

It is, in a word, terrible.

“Graffiti Bridge” is essentially a series of music videos strung together uncomfortably with awkward dialogue and stiff acting. It looks very of its time, and it has not aged well. The ’90s MTV aesthetic is melodramatic and overpowering: lots of dry ice and smoky streaks of lights, with everything bathed in primary colors. The whole thing is set on rain-soaked backlot streets (it was shot at Prince’s Paisley Park Studios) under neon lights. A lone white feather flutters in slow motion in the breeze. One entire number takes place amid the flash of strobe lights with sheer, white curtains blowing in the wind. It all looks extremely small and chintzy, which seems contradictory given the late, great Prince’s larger-than-life persona.

Prince returns to his “Purple Rain” role as The Kid. He’s now the co-owner of a nightclub with his longtime frenemy, Morris (the preening Morris Day, always a hoot). The Kid performs with his band and Morris performs with The Time (featuring prolific R&B songwriters Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, in their earlier incarnation as part of Day’s crew) but their alliance is fraught with tension.

When Morris makes a power play to control all the nightclubs in town (actually, they all exist in the same gloomy intersection where the entire film takes place), The Kid must fight for what’s his. At the same time, he and Morris find themselves competing for the same woman: an ethereal and elusive poet named Aura (Ingrid Chavez). She magically appears and disappears, mystically repeating the same breathy phrase over and over: “It’s just around the corner.”

Is Aura a muse? Is this R&B “Xanadu”?

Chavez actually is a writer and performer who was Prince’s real-life muse for a while. But despite whatever off-screen creative connection they might have had, their scenes together in “Graffiti Bridge” are painful to watch. They have zero chemistry with each other, and their florid dialogue is laughably forced.

It hurts me to say this, but a great deal of the responsibility for the film’s emotional shortcomings falls on Prince. For all of his thrilling stage presence and mind-boggling musicianship, he was a terrible actor: stiff, mannered and weirdly withdrawn. He was lovely to look at with those long, soft locks and big, doe eyes, but his acting mainly consisted of pouting and staring pensively into the distance to convey sorrow, or loneliness, or whatever he was aiming for here.

Also problematic is Prince’s depiction of women. Aside from Aura, who’s an angel, the other ladies are scantily clad and understandably angry. They’re either used as arm candy or cast aside. In one scene that’s played for awkward laughs, Morris’ flunky, Jerome (Jerome Benton), takes the coat off a woman standing outside a nightclub and lays it down over a puddle of mud for Morris to step across. Like the overall look of the film, its treatment of women has not aged well.

“Graffiti Bridge” only really comes alive during its musical performances, but even those are inconsistent. The songs on the soundtrack aren’t among Prince’s best, and they don’t come anywhere near the iconic tracks on “Purple Rain.”

Surprisingly, Prince often relies on other major talents to supply the sound of this world. Besides a couple of upbeat songs from The Time, George Clinton provides a spirited performance that’s far too brief. The legendary Mavis Staples gets the benefit of makeshift gospel choir behind her when she spontaneously bursts into song in the middle of the street.

But the highlight is 13-year-old Tevin Campbell making his film debut as Staples’ son. (He would go on to be an R&B star and actor throughout the decade, but “Graffiti Bridge” helped launch his career.) Campbell performs “Round and Round,” the rare song from this soundtrack that actually became a hit. He’s adorable and swaggering at the same time as he busts out his ’90s dance moves. You can see what Prince saw in him — and it’s enough to make you wish he were at the center of the film instead.