Let's be realistic.

Crappy film

A different way of telling a story

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

...for God's sake woman get rid of those candles! The idea of falling asleep with one hundred lit candles sitting directly on an extremely combustible wooden moon étagère would scare the crap out of me more than the idea of you needing more than one sexual partner! But I digress.This was Spike Lee's first directorial and writing effort. Since this was Spike Lee BEFORE he was a brand name, nobody was going to cut him any financial slack in his filmmaking. He had to cut corners everywhere. He got his family into the act - one plays main character Nola Darling's best friend, another plays Nola's dad. And Spike Lee even acted in the film himself as Mars, one of Nola's three lovers. He managed to shoot the whole thing for 175000 dollars and grossed almost eight million at the box office. Who knows what he's made off of it due to cable broadcasts and home video.The film explores the life of a young African American female artist, Nola Darling, living in Brooklyn, who has the same view towards sex and sexuality that many men have - she wants to play the field. She's not lying about anything, she just doesn't talk about any of the others to the one she is with at the time. Nola actually has three lovers - Mars - the fun and goofy one, Greer the sophisticate who hardly needs to eat because he is so full of himself, and Jamie, probably her soul mate. These guys rather meld into one entire man who is able to keep Nola happy. And then they find out about one another, with Jamie being the most wounded by the news.Years before "The Red Pill" and "Men Going Their Own Way", that seems to be exactly what is going on with Nola, minus the bitterness. In fact, during the film she is torn between cutting herself off from men sexually for awhile - going her own way - and this Red Pill life in which there is no dishonesty but many lovers. Nola LIKES sex in and of itself, isn't looking to settle down, likes her Bohemian lifestyle.For Law and Order fans, S. Epatha Merkerson shows up as Nola's therapist. The film was unique for its time because it had a completely African American perspective, was shot in black and white, had the characters talking to the camera about what they were feeling at the time, and had no pat answers, no neatly sewn up ending. As for me, I would have picked Mars. All he needed was a little career direction, and he was fun. But then I've always been a one man gal. I recommend it. I think you'll find it fascinating.

Spike Lee's low-budget, directorial debut "She's Gotta Have It" ranks as the outspoken African-American's helmer's best and least pretentious film. This modest but compelling portrait of single black woman Nola Darling qualifies as one of the greatest feminist films of the 1980s. The theme of women versus men dominates the action with the corresponding themes of women versus women and women versus society tangling for second place. The men fall back on the traditional precedents that society has established for women. Consequently, this melodrama exposes the sexual double-standard issue between men and women. Indeed, men cite dating multiple women as their masculine birthright, while a woman must only date one man at a time. "She's Gotta Have It" torpedoes that argument with its unorthodox heroine. Moreover, coming as it did on the last years of "blaxploitation" movie, Lee's film is refreshing different because none of the men are portrayed stereotypically as either pimps or drug dealers. The cast, headed by Tracy Camilla Johns, is largely unknown, but they perform well in this simple, but powerful 84 minute melodrama that asks the audience to decide if the leading lady—Nola—is a freak. In other words, is Nola a slut because she has three boyfriends that she has sex with in her apartment in New York City. Lee makes excellent use of the technique of breaking the fourth wall—when the thespians address the audience by looking directly into the camera at us—and taking their argument to us. The heroine has a relationship with a romantically inclined lover Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks), a stuck-up, egotistical performer Greer Childs (John Canada Terrell), and young, snappy street dude Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee). None of the three guys likes each other as they struggle to please Nola. One of Nola's apartment house neighbors is an attractive lesbian Opal Gilstrap (Raye Dowell of "Malcolm X") who tries without success to seduce Nola.

Spike Lee's directoral debut is classic. How can he go wrong with a black and white film... BW is the best. This film is made up of great characters(Mars) and perfect, orginal direction. I think Spike did a great job with the editing too.. oh I almost forgot his screen debut as and actor too, which was perfect as well. A smile came to my face every time Mars came in the mix, especially the Thanksgiving scene. I love those glasses Spike. 9/10

The "she" that the movie title refers to, played by Traci Camilla Johns, is a beautiful, intelligent young black woman that also happens to be a nymphomaniac. While other people's beds are just places to sleep in, the lead character's bed is a shrine to be worshipped as evidenced by her propensity to adorn it with ceremonial candles. Her main sexual partners are a nerd (Spike), a wanna-be playboy, and a earnest young man who is actually interested in a relationship.I appreciate that Spike helped blaze for other young black filmmakers with his very personal approach to film-making but I never could understand why luminaries like Terri McMillan were so impressed with this film. It's a self-indulgent Spike Lee pipe dream, at best, with characters that I found it hard to care about. Why would a woman as fine as Traci Camilla Johns include a character as annoying as Spike's character among her lovers? After two hours, I thought I would at least have a better understanding of why "she has to have it", but alas that wasn't the case.The real value in watching this movie to me is observing how much the talented Lee has progressed since then. It's not bad movie, just uneven. It's unfortunate Spike didn't really put the alluring Ms. Johns to much use in future films. 7 out of 10.