Details
Movie Description
Spike Lee's drama is a complex, multilayered, and volatile look at interracial romance in present-day New York City. Flipper Purify (Wesley Snipes), an up-and-coming African American architect, seems to have it all: a successful career, a nice apartment on a renovated street in Harlem, a beautiful, intelligent wife whom he adores, and a bright, loving daughter. The last thing he expects is to find himself in an affair with a blue-collar Italian American from Bensonhurst. But soon after Angie Tucci (Annabella Sciorra) comes to work in his office, the two end up staying late together and having intimate talks over takeout Chinese food. Inevitably a romance begins, leaving Flipper and Angie caught up in the fury and suspicion of the racial prejudice of their families and friends. As their lives unravel, so does their affair, and they wonder if their relationship ever had a chance from the beginning. As usual with Lee, he isn't content to tackle simply one issue in his films--in JUNGLE FEVER, he addresses, for perhaps the first time, the drug epidemic in the African American community. In this subplot, Samuel L. Jackson plays Gator, Flipper's crackhead brother, with an intensity that is almost too painful to watch.
Synopsis
This critically acclaimed film explores the consequences of interracial relationships in this story of an African American architect who has an affair with his working-class Italian secretary.
Film Notes
Theatrical release: June 1991.
Shot on location in New York City.
The film is dedicated to Yusef Hawkins, a young African American who was murdered in Bensonhurst by a group of white youths who objected to his relationship with an Italian American girl.
Illeana Douglas and Gina Gershon's scenes were both cut from the picture.
Industry Reviews
"...Consistently invigorating....[Sciorra] is a delight, a woman of guts and humor and enormous resilience....Lee joins the ranks of our best..."
Canby
"...Technically tops and performed to the hilt, FEVER propels Lee into Martin Scorsese territory..."
USA Today - Mike Clark (06/07/1991)
"...Strong and powerful....No other filmmaker has the nerve to ask the questions that must be asked, to ask them so persistently, or so well..."
Los Angeles Times - Kenneth Turan (06/07/1991)
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