G is romantic drama based on the Jazz Age classic novel, The Great Gatsby (one of my favorites). However, kids be warned, watching this movie will not substitute for reading the book because there are some big differences (and not just the addition of rappers and a hip-hop soundtrack).

The Great Gatsby was basically a love triangle awash in class warfare. Gatsby fell in love with shallow socialite Daisy. But Daisy leaves the struggling Gatsby for the rich 'old money' Tom Buchannan. Not content to let the love of his life pass him by, Gatsby becomes a self-made millionaire (although the origins of his wealth are never clearly revealed). His motivation is to win back the woman of his dreams. Only his dreams are shattered when he sees Daisy for what she truly is, not his ideal soul mate but a shallow social climber who is truly incapable of returning his love. Caught in the middle of it all is Daisy's cousin Nick who watches the whole story unfold over a summer in West Egg.  

The basic structure of G is the same. Only G (Richard T. Jones) reinvents himself as a hip-hop mogul along the lines of Puffy and Russell Simmons. Tom is now Chip (Blair Underwood), a bougie financier who fancies himself as better than the coarse hip-hop types he looks down upon. Daisy is now Sky (Chenoa Maxwell), a woman with considerably more depth than Daisy. Still caught in the middle is Sky's cousin Tre (Andre Royo) who gets caught in the middle of the tug-of-war for his cousin's affections in the posh Hamptons.

I enjoyed G.  It wasn't a big budget production and it showed in the production values but all of the major actors gave solid performances. Those of you who are regular visitors to my site (all five of you! LOL!), know that I'm all about diverse portrayals of African Americans, so I have to say it was refreshing to see a serious romantic drama featuring African-Americans that aren't pimps, playas and hustlers.

Without giving too much away, I felt that Skye should have been more conflicted when it came time to make her final decision. Screenwriter Christopher Scott Cherot seemed to go through a lot to make her more substantive than the original Daisy but at the end, she made her 'decision' very quickly and it didn't quite ring true for me.

 I also thought a little too much time was spent on the sub-plots with the performers on G's label. One of them was central to the plot but it seemed a bit distracting at other times.