Coming into Modern Love, I was certain of what I would see and what I’d experience. I was looking forward to love that transcends time and space, but still, love that was basic, where A + B = C and most of the time A and B are straight and white people and C is their love story.
And this isn’t coming out of nowhere. If you’re straight and white then you are socially acceptable, and they make tons of movies and TV shows about you. And when they do, it’s mostly about the kind of love between two people that ends up being romantic. See, basic.
Love is not defined as simply something that happens between a straight couple of the fair complexion. Love is bigger than that, love is more complicated than that, and love is more transcendent than the basic expectations we’ve had forced upon us for decades. And this is where Modern Love comes in, with an anthology series that breaks that mold and delivers a heartfelt and honest expression of what love is like in 2019, through interracial relationships, familial relationships, queer relationships, and so much more.
What we are left with in Modern Love when the screen goes black is a collection of stories that are relatable and heart-stopping, charming yet heartbreaking, and fun yet eye-opening.
You have a couple struggling through the mistakes of their past.
You have another that is hanging on by a string when it comes to their marriage.
You even have a young woman traversing the trials of being bipolar and looking for love.
And you have the old, the young, the middle aged falling in love, experiencing the pain of the loss of it, all in the space of an episode. All great loves that stick with you, episode after episode.
And great love stories don’t have to be of the romantic kind. Great love stories can, and were in Modern Love, about the bonds of family. And it doesn’t even have to be biological family. It can be about those who appear in our lives by chance but stay in them by choice. It’s about those small and intimate relationships that make us a community and a family like no other. That is love and that is presented in such a manner on Modern Love that I want to see more, and I want to see it now, especially if it means the continuation of these stories.
Modern Love also succeeds in making an unforgettable anthology series on love by making us believe that some of the love stories are romantic, before turning our eyes to the reality of who and what you can love, and who can love you in return. And the possibilities are endless. Love can come from that one person you see every day for a couple minutes, but who brightens your day. Love can come from a work mate, a boss, or even the birth of a child.
It all counts.
It all matters.
It’s all love.
Modern Love will be available to stream on Amazon Prime on October 18th.
