Corrina, Corrina (1994)

(On Cable TV, March 2022) It’s hard to be that critical of Corrina, Corrina when its heart is such in a right place—a nice fairytale of a 1950s white widower hiring a black nanny, then falling for her despite prejudices crossing racial, class and social lines. You get Ray Liotta as a rather likable protagonist, for once (a musical composer, even!), as well as a great-looking Whoopi Goldberg as the sweet yet sharp-talking romantic interest. It’s easily watchable, even when it runs across very familiar plot threads. Writer-director Jessie Nelson isn’t interested in a realistic drama, though: the sets are brightly lit as if in a nostalgic fantasy, the characters seem predetermined to be together and the script allows itself just enough expressions of prejudice to get the point across and nothing more upsetting. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it underscores the limits of feel-good anti-racism film often seen throughout Hollywood history in which white filmmakers make inclusive statements that don’t seem to fully engage with the subjacent problems and set up a comforting fantasy for their white audiences. It’s hard to be against that kind of material, but it’s important to acknowledge, especially in light of better movies since the 1980s, how limited it can be. That doesn’t make Corrina, Corrina a bad film, but watching it today only underscores who differently we would approach similar material nearly three decades later.