“My mother wasn’t very good at love,” says Issa Rae in the first trailer for “The Photograph.” “What if I’m just like her? How are you supposed to know if you want to spend forever with someone?” Stella Meghie’s latest sees the “Insecure” co-creator and star playing Mae, a woman who “must learn from the secrets in her mother’s past if she is to move forward and allow herself to love and be loved,” the film’s synopsis hints.
Mae and her mother, a famed photographer, are estranged when the latter unexpectedly dies. Left angry and full of questions, Mae begins to see her mother in a new light when she discovers a photograph tucked away in a safe-deposit box. The artifact kicks off Mae’s quest to uncover her mother’s history, though she can’t help but wonder why her mother didn’t tell her about her life while she was still alive.
But Mae isn’t the only one interested in her mother’s legacy. A journalist (LaKeith Stanfield, “Sorry to Bother You”) is writing a story about her — and he and Mae unexpectedly connect. If their burgeoning romance is going to go anywhere, Mae will have to confront her mother’s past and her own future.
“Insecure” will return for a fourth season on HBO with a premiere date TBA. “The Hate U Give” and “Little” are among Rae’s other acting credits. She’ll re-team with Meghie on “American Princess,” a comedy about an American woman who finds herself drawn into a world of wealth and high society when she moves to London.
Meghie and Rae first joined forces when the former directed the latter in an episode of “Insecure.” Meghie’s feature credits include “The Weekend,” “Everything, Everything,” and “Jean of the Joneses.”
When we asked her advice for other women directors, Meghie said, “Don’t care what people are thinking about you if you have to say no, or if you have to ask for something you need to do your job properly.”
“The Photograph” hits theaters on Valentine’s Day. Meghie penned the script. Check out the trailer to hear Mae’s mother explain the toll that putting her love into photographs took on her personal life.
