Monica (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy (Omar Epps) are two childhood friends who both aspire to be professional basketball players. Over the years, the two begin to fall for each other, but their separate paths to basketball stardom threaten to pull them apart.
Stylishly shot and bursting with visual and sexual energy, this is confident black women's film-making and an eloquent tribute to the girl with the permanently grazed knees -- and about time too.
It's a fine example of a conventionally made picture which follows all the rules yet still emerges as fresh and original.
Common Sense Media
January 01, 2011
Good romance, but strong sexuality for a PG-13.
Variety
March 26, 2007
The pic is so well directed and lead performance by Sanaa Lathan so charismatic that audiences will overlook the script's flaws and root for the central duo.
Reeling Reviews
April 09, 2005
Thanks to Spike Lee's production company for giving a talented newcomer a good start.
An unusual but engaging mix of the overwrought and the understated, a picture that, at two hours plus, keeps threatening to overstay its welcome and yet always pulls us back into its conversational orbit.
The surprise element here is that the film takes Monica's career, and her love of the game, as seriously, probably more seriously, than it does Quincy's.
Mawkishly heartfelt, but actress Sanaa Lathan performs as if she were lit from within.
San Diego Metropolitan
October 21, 2002
Prince-Bythewood, a first-time feature filmmaker out of UCLA's film school, tells a story that is at once warm and heartfelt -- and often funny as well.
Told largely from the point of view of the woman, this career-versus-love story still develops the perspective of the man persuasively, as Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps reveal their characters' motives with nuances of expression that transcend the dialogue.
