Gina Prince-Bythewood doesn’t do conventional.
An upbeat, warm woman, her 2000 debut feature Love & Basketball made a splash for its depiction of a romance between a man and woman who are both avid basketball players. Her spec script for the film–which she sharpened with the Sundance Institute–ignited a bidding war, with another Hollywood maverick eventually winning the producing rights: Spike Lee.
The Secret Life of Bees, her follow-up film made eight years later, starred Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson and Alicia Keys, and also earned her critical praise. The film inverted the tired “white savior” trope employed in movies such as The Help and Green Book to feature a young white girl saved by her friendship with a group of African-American women, and the art of beekeeping. Beyond the Lights, her 2014 directorial outing, told the story of an international pop star who falls for a blue-collar cop.
Related: Celebrity Daily Dose: Chiwetel Ejiofor & Harry Melling of ‘The Old Guard’ obsess over the same movie
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Now Prince-Bythewood returns with her most unconventional story to date. The Old Guard, based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka & Leandro Fernandez, tells the story of a group of immortal warriors led by the world-wary Andy (Charlize Theron). As the group rushes to protect a newborn immortal (Kiki Layne), a scientist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and power-mad billionaire (Harry Melling) target the group to learn the secrets of immortality.
In a most refreshing twist for a sci-fi action romp, the film features a queer romance between two male immortals, Joe & Nicky, played by Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli. We caught up with Prince-Bythewood to talk about her first foray into action, and about anchoring the film’s romantic subplot with two gay characters.
DarkZephyr
Sounds fun! I can’t wait to see it.
Unlikely
She didn’t “inject” the gay love, it is in the original comic books.
ShowMeGuy
It will be okay. They were just enjoying some flirty word play. Gay love as in *love of the gays*. The typical hollywood film makers would have edited out the gay stuff to make the project “play in Peoria”.
Seriously, it will be okay.
Jon in Canada
First off, as Unlikely noted, the graphic novel had Joe and Nicky as gay, so there was no “injecting” of queerness on her part.
Secondly, I watched it last night and I was surprised at how good it was and was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t make it a big deal so much as let it flow naturally without being forced. The kiss was hilarious though because the faces of the guards was so painfully homophobic so as to make one laugh, which I did.
Lastly, even though it is action packed, some of the fights sequences are like a ballet, it also has an intellectual side to it that touch on matters of ethics: how does an immortal feel about taking finite human life, the loneliness of immortality and the desperation it can bring. Great watch.
Max
the gay love interest portion was nice to see in the movie. the rest of it, not so much.