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Personal Problems
Personal Problems
8.3
/10
165 Ratings

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

Directed by Bill Gunn
United States, 1980
Drama

Synopsis

Johnnie Mae Brown is a New York City nurse whose husband is cheating on her. Her personal dramas play out, as her extended family takes her domestic and emotional labor for granted.

Synopsis

Johnnie Mae Brown is a New York City nurse whose husband is cheating on her. Her personal dramas play out, as her extended family takes her domestic and emotional labor for granted.

Our take

This self-proclaimed “experimental soap opera” is an antithesis to television, brilliantly formed by Bill Gunn and Ishmael Reed. Starring the outstanding Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, the film politicizes daily Black life not through oversimplified themes, but the moving power of private struggle.