Review: Heading abroad, a stranger decides to stay awhile in gently funny ‘The Black Sea’
LA TimesI’ve never been to Bulgaria and mostly know it as a picturesque Balkan country, affordable as a location for action films, and the birthplace of tennis star Grigor Dimitrov and Oscar nominee Maria Bakalova. But a movie that’s put me in mind of wanting to visit — if only to locate the scrappy sociability and beauty it displays so winningly — is “The Black Sea,” a made-on-the-fly comedy from co-directors Crystal Moselle and Derrick B. It’s a loose, lively and big-hearted tale about an accidental American tourist who, in trying to get back home, attracts a welcoming party and maybe the roots of a happy future. Broke and missing his passport but infused with a traveler’s spirit, Khalid scrounges for odd jobs — restaurant work, cleaning the marina, painting someone’s boat — to make enough money to fly home. And when Khalid gets a taste of the country’s open-faced cheese toasties known as prinzesi, he’s inspired to open a makeshift cafe with Ina, adding to the menu his matcha-making skills as an émigré from “gentrified Brooklyn.” The spot becomes an instant hit with the townspeople, especially when Khalid starts an open-mic night, rhymes, beats and folk music sharing the moonlit air. The openly hybridized “The Black Sea” betrays the rough vibes of the latter, but because it feeds off the narrative energy of stranger-in-town unpredictability, it absolutely benefits from it, like a movie you’re invested in at the same time you can enjoy its open-kitchen ambience.
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