# Why Do Fools Fall In Love (1998)

### reviewed by
James Sanford

Groupies, take heed: Marrying a musician may ultimately benefit your lawyer more than it will you. That's the message of ``Why Do Fools Fall In Love?'' about the three-way battle for the estate of singer Frankie Lymon, who died at the age of 25 in 1968 from a heroin overdose.

In his wake, Lymon left behind a trio of women all claiming to be his legitimate widow: Zola Taylor (Halle Berry), a singer with the Platters; Elizabeth Waters (Vivica A. Fox), a good girl gone wrong; and Emira Eagle (Lela Rochon), a strait-laced schoolteacher from Georgia. Certainly, considering what each lady had to put up with while being around the former teen idol, each was entitled to some kind of monetary compensation.

The picture ``Fools'' paints of Lymon is woefully incomplete - writer Tina Andrews can't seem to put her finger on exactly what led to Lymon's heroin addiction, for instance - but what's shown is unflattering and sad. An overnight success with his racially mixed group The Teenagers in the late 1950s, the sweet-voiced Lymon fell out of favor with the public almost as quickly, thanks to his forbidden dance with a white girl on national TV and his ill-fated attempt to go solo. Like many teen idols, he was effectively washed-up before age 20.

In what can only be read as an attempt to spice up his otherwise dreary life, Lymon first romanced Taylor, then married Waters before setting his sights on wholesome Eagle. All were won over by Lymon's charm and attentiveness. Taylor and Waters would later suffer greatly for their association with him. While Lymon once sang ``I'm Not A Juvenile Delinquent,'' offstage he was a junkie, a thief and a user.

Berry, Rochon and Fox are all far more believable as young women than they are in the sequences set in the mid-1980s in which director Gregory Nava allows each to ham it up disconcertingly. As Lymon, Larenz Tate capably handles a difficult character whose behavior ranges from beguiling to bizarre, but the true highlight of the cast is the incomparable Little Richard, playing himself with panache.

``Fools'' turns up the occasional insight into how this irresponsible man wormed his way into the hearts of three very different women, but more often than not Andrews' screenplay can't decide if it's a cautionary tale about the perils of marrying a has-been or a rowdy ``you go, girl'' celebration of sisterhood. The movie's timeline is pitifully tangled from the very start, when Waters hears Diana Ross' ``new'' cover of the Lymon-penned ``Why Do Fools Fall In Love?'' in 1985 - four years after the record went gold. In a scene set in 1964, Waters and Lymon listen to Otis Redding's ``Try A Little Tenderness'' on the radio; an astonishing feat considering the song wasn't recorded until 1966.

When it comes to recreating the Alan Freed rock-n-roll shows of the 1950s and the deliciously tacky go-go look of TV's ``Hullabaloo,'' the movie scores. But the courtroom battle that forms the dramatic centerpiece of the film is not exactly a nail-biter; it's a clear case of ``Smart-Mouthed Women, Foolish Choices.''

    James Sanford

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews