La la land

Even I, a bitter and cynical middle-aged woman, felt stirred: Sylvie’s Love reviewed

Sylvie’s Love is an exquisitely styled, swooning, old-school, period Hollywood romance and while it has been described as ‘glib’ in some quarters, it’s Christmas, we’ve had a rotten year, and it may be just what the doctor ordered. And if it is glib — I’m not convinced it is, actually; it may even be quite groundbreaking — it is, at least, adorably and cheeringly so. (My heart was warmed.) It is written and directed by Eugene Ashe, and opens in Harlem in the summer of 1957 with Sylvie, played by a luminous Tessa Thompson. She works in her father’s record store but is obsessed by television and dreams of becoming