We Belong Together is a 2019 thriller about a recovering alcoholic college professor trying to put his life back together when he meets a seductive new student.
You have to sort of respect a little bit of what writer and director Chris Stokes‘ We Belong Together initially wants to achieve with a somewhat grounded take on alcoholism and recovery. It’s really about the only meaningful thing to happen though as the plot switches to a more pedestrian obsession story that, despite its efforts, plays out like a made-for-TV movie (it originally aired on BET) inspired by a dime store stalker romance. It’s fairly obvious is what I’m saying.
Thomas Lewis (Charles Malik Whitfield) begins with an honorable achievement, earning his 90-day sobriety chip and finally getting unsupervised visits with his young daughter. He is also back in front of the class, a professor teaching mythology, and on his first day, finds a young woman named Tracey (Draya Michele) enrolled, she we know having just been released from jail and quickly has her jealous eye the professor and his teaching assistant Leslie (Jessica Vanessa DeLeon). When Leslie turns up murdered, Tracy makes her move on Thomas. He resists at first but caves the next time, which is of course the worst of ideas and soon enough, he’s in a world of hurt.
There’s not a subtle bone in any of We Belong Together, the whole thing about as blunt as an anvil to the forehead. But hey, that’s what it wants, with straight lines connecting very large dots as Stokes simply tells a story we’ve seen before in all its glorious primary colors. There’s a knee-jerk reaction to get about twenty minutes in and believe this is entirely designed to be cheesy, almost gleefully jumping over the cliff in trying to be as silly as it can be, but it has more than enough truly troubling themes in the mix that it tries to handle legitimately it’s sort of impossible not to see that this is meant to be taken seriously. That includes the aforementioned drinking and the tragedy behind it, which admittedly it presented with some punch.
And this is where the dilemma of We Belong Together falls into place because while most of it is indeed flat with very little momentum as the charade of sex, obsession, and kidnapping all roll out on a conventional conveyor belt, every once in a while, it stands up straight and does something unexpected, with Whitfield doing the best in the lot as a man on the edge, even as the format and limitations of the production keep him fenced in a corner.
You’re not going to be surprised by any of what We Belong Together has up its short sleeve, but for fans of the genre – meaning Lifetime-esque chillers – this is what you’re looking for. It lacks the raw violence, sex, or passion that it deserves, but that’s where it is. Streaming on Netflix, it’s one more in a growing collection of such that will find an easy home among the rest.