Debuting earlier this year at Sundance, the romance Sylvie’s Love was quickly snapped up by Amazon with plans for a theatrical release. Well, things change…like a global pandemic that shuts everything down. And now the Tessa Thompson-led drama will arrive straight to Amazon Prime this December, when it may still emerge as a possible awards contender in a landscape full of direct-to-streaming options.
Written and directed by Eugene Ashe, Sylvie’s Love pairs Tessa Thompson up with ex-NFL player Nnamdi Asomugha, who has really grown into quite an actor with his roles in Crown Heights and Hello My Name is Doris. Set in the 1950s during the Motown era, the film stars Thompson as an aspiring TV producer, and Asomougha as a jazz musician, who meet and fall in love but must separate to pursue their respective dreams.
Also in the cast are Aja Naomi King, Jemima Kirke, Tone Bell, Alano Miller, Wendi Mclendon-Covey, John Magaro, Regé-Jean Page, MC Lyte, and Eva Longoria.
Sylvie’s Love hits Amazon on Christmas Day.
SYNOPSIS: In Sylvie’s Love, the jazz is smooth and the air sultry in the hot New York summer of 1957. Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha), a saxophonist, spends late nights playing behind a less-talented but well-known bandleader, as member of a jazz quartet. Sylvie (Tessa Thompson), who dreams of a career in television, spends her summer days helping around her father’s record store, as she waits for her fiancé to return from war. When Robert takes a part-time job at the record store, the two begin a friendship that sparks a deep passion in each of them unlike anything they have felt before. As the summer winds down, life takes them in different directions, bringing their relationship to an end. Years pass, Sylvie’s career as a TV producer blossoms, while Robert has to come to terms with what the age of Motown is doing to the popularity of Jazz. In a chance meeting, Sylvie and Robert cross paths again, only to find that while their lives have changed, their feelings for each other remain the same. Writer/director Eugene Ashe combines romance and music into a sweeping story that brings together changing times, a changing culture, and the true price of love.
