'A Journal For Jordan' Review: Denzel Washington's Latest Directorial Effort With Michael B Jordan Is Maudlin & Flat

It comes in just under the buzzer, but Denzel Washington’s latest directorial effort, “A Journal for Jordan,” has to be one of the strangest movies of 2021. Not because it’s so maudlin or rinky-dink, but because it marks his follow-up to the immense passion he poured into adapting August Wilson’sFences” back in 2016. Washington treats this movie with the same passion as a corporate gig, actualizing a romance about a soldier and a woman with a stunning visual flatness. There is some heat and heart from the two leads Chanté Adams and Michael B. Jordan, but the movie is dominated by aesthetics and sentimentality that are cheap on their own level, never mind compared to the focused grandiosity of “Fences.” 

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Chanté Adams stars as Dana Canedy, the author of this movie’s story, spends much of the film reflecting on her relationship with the soldier and family friend who later became the husband and father of their child. She’s framed in the story as a malleable romantic lead, a go-getter who lives in the city and fights for the respect she deserves in her workplace (in this case, the New York Times). Dana meets the man of her and Denzel Washington’s dreams, 1st Sgt. Charles Monroe King (Michael B. Jordan), through her family, and they begin a very quaint courtship. He has his eye for her immediately, but he’s respectful; when she invites him to her apartment for a visit, he gets ready to sleep on the couch. 

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It’s all very wholesome; it’s all very ideal, and as sweet as it may be, it never feels true despite being based on a true story. Even worse, there is so little passion from the cinematography itself, which hits redundant strides of Dana and Charles simply sitting and talking in her apartment, or standing outside. Washington blocks these characters as if they were on a stage, and the indifferent cinematic adaptation of otherwise big conversations or romantic reunions sucks what little life they already have. 

“A Journal for Jordan” is all about what’s already in the formula; the scenes of courtship are the sweetest that the movie can be, with Adams’ always energetic performance offering an intriguing contrast to Jordan’s sexy, very gentlemanly, and extremely robotic presence. He remains stubbornly chivalrous throughout while she is disarmed and excited about this attractive, artistic (he loves pointillism and Monet), loyal, and wholly gratuitous in all that he gives of himself to the viewer. Yes, Michael B. Jordan is absolutely, breathtakingly sexy in the role, even just casually walking around a bedroom without his shirt off. But “A Journal for Jordan” would have the same effect on mute or paused more than it does in motion. In fact, it might have even better use that way. 

But the most sentimental, and fetishizing force of this movie is Washington, who takes this love story as an opportunity to deify the unrealistic man he is presenting on-screen, played by Michael B. Jordan. There is not a moment in which King seems like a real flesh-and-blood, imperfect person, as admirable as many traits may be. Instead, he is a photograph of a mirage about masculinity, with his manners, physique, duty to country, loyalty to family, etc. It’s gross and tedious, and when the movie does try to create some tension between them—like a series of missed phone calls because he was comforting a fellow soldier at the hospital—it feels especially phony, even within the broad range of what can make for a problem in a romantic saga. Here, the main problem, also presented as a sterling trait, is that he’s super loyal. 

Jordan is the name of Dana and Charles’ child; this story is told as both the words written for Jordan by his father in a journal, along with narration from his mother, who is sometimes shown at the computer, writing the sentences that became Canedy’s book. This makes for an erratic, messy timeline that jumps back and forth while it tells the love story, and the editing can be incredibly abrasive. A close-up of Jordan’s bare ass, and later a flaming World Trade Center tower on 9/11, are given the same in-your-face care from the reckless editing, cheap shots that demand a type of reaction from the audience. 

The only real tension that comes from this romance is that the soldier and father it is celebrating died years ago during the Iraq War, which is its entire framing device. This approach becomes especially treacly in this last third, when Jordan is shown to be an older boy, asking questions about his father, seeking a type of closure that arrives with some of Washington’s most heavy-handed storytelling yet. These scenes show how lazy of a tearjerker Washington can be, and also unearth some of the movie’s spineless jingoism. Charles participated in the war in Iraq because he was quote, “fighting for his soldiers,” a statement made by Dana as a means to make him sound loyal but remove any responsibility from those who stationed him there. 

“A Journal for Jordan” has no mind for any type of criticism, for any flaws, for questioning anything despite the way it deals with incredibly real, fraught, and complicated ideas like love, war, sacrifice, loyalty, being a human being, etc. There are numerous moments in which it could break its version of Charles Monroe King from his shell, like a brief scene when he orders simply a Caesar salad at a fancy Italian restaurant as if on autopilot—he could learn to live a little, embrace messiness, embrace what makes life more realistic than just a dream. And in turn, he could challenge us about what makes a real person out of someone who looks perfect on paper. But Washington has no interest in that. As the overly long movie becomes about 130 minutes of his own propaganda, Washington romanticizes an ideal of man that has never actually existed, instead of a human being who did. [C-]