A steady, watchful presence in her brother's Brooklyn, most often the sister or the sensible partner, with a voice that takes its own time. We have seen her only at her rawest; the reputation, and the writing, came after.
Fi1m perspective
Joie Lee is usually the person in the scene who is not trying to win it. In her brother Spike Lee's films she is the older sister, the steady girlfriend, the one who asks the question the men around her would rather not answer, and she asks it in a low, even voice that takes its own time. Critics who write about her tend to fix on the same things: the large eyes, the dense coiled hair, the delivery that sounds playful and turns out to have something harder under it, and the parts, which are nearly always somebody's conscience rather than somebody's lead.
We have only reviewed the first of them, and it is not the one to judge her by. She's Gotta Have It (1986) is Spike Lee's debut, 84 minutes of black and white Brooklyn shot by Ernest Dickerson, and Clorinda Bradford was written for her. It is a small part in a film that is roughly acted around its heroine, and her scenes, like Raye Dowell's, play as first readings: the sound is muddy and lines that should land as wit arrive as statements. We winced, and we should be fair about why. Almost nobody in the film is at ease apart from S. Epatha Merkerson. Clorinda is a beginner's part played by a beginner, and it shows.
What came next is where her name was made, and we have not yet reviewed any of it. She is Jade, the responsible sister, in Do the Right Thing (1989), and Indigo Downes, a teacher and one of Denzel Washington's love interests, in Mo' Better Blues (1990), one of the largest parts she has been given. The notices on both settle on the same words: thinking, natural, steady. Her own account of Indigo is more interesting than the notices: "Indigo is very soft-spoken, and I can get loud." Dickerson shot those early films too, and the Brooklyn she stands in is the one he lit for her brother.
She has also written it. Crooklyn (1994) is her story, the screenplay shared with her brother Cinqué Lee, a family in 1970s Brooklyn drawn from their own; she plays Aunt Maxine in it. The two of them turn up again as twins in Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes (2003). Since then there has been television, Rectify, Broad City, and the series continuation of She's Gotta Have It from 2017, where she plays Septima Darling and writes for it as well.
The complaint from the people who like her is a steady one: the parts are small, the face and the voice are used for a scene or two, and nobody has put her in the middle of a film. On the evidence we have, one raw debut and a reputation we have not yet tested, we would like to see what she does there.
Biography
Joie Lee is an American actress, screenwriter and film producer. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she is the sister of director Spike Lee and has appeared in several of his films.
Her early roles include Clorinda Bradford in She's Gotta Have It (1986), Lizzie Life in School Daze (1988), Jade in Do the Right Thing (1989) and Indigo Downes in Mo' Better Blues (1990). She co-wrote and produced Crooklyn (1994), in which she also appeared as Aunt Maxine.
Lee has worked in other films such as Summer of Sam (1999) and Coffee and Cigarettes (2004), and on television series including Rectify (2016) and Broad City (2019).
