A Journal for Jordan

A Journal for Jordan

The title of this movie is “A Journal for Jordan,” however, alike to the book which served as its inspiration, it is basically two journals. They were written by both parents of a baby whom his father would only meet once before he was killed in Iraq. This is a story about an improbable romance between two completely different people and the undying connection that they wished their son to be aware of.

Dana Canedy, a New York Times reporter and editor, was pregnant while her fiancé First Sgt. Charles Monroe King was deployed to Iraq. She gave him a journal that became his solace “his second home” where he could reach back to talk with her at the end of each day. Seeing young men killed in action made him write over 200 pages about what he had learned about life and being a man, and his hopes for his son; everything from treating women with respect not being ashamed to cry: “Crying can release a lot of pain and stress. It has nothing to do with your manhood.”

After King’s death, Canedy wrote a best-seller using excerpts from the journal, telling Jordan the story of his father and their time together. Each chapter begins as a letter: “Dear Jordan.”

We first see Dana (Chanté Adams) at work fiercely independent; angry at an editor who wants to add another reporter to her story; annoyed when the colleague who is trying to be assigned to her story points out that her breast milk has soaked through her blouse (she’s still breast feeding; it’s past time to pump).

Then we go back in time to her first meeting with Charles (Michael B. Jordan), in the living room of the house she grew up in, where he’s hanging a picture he created as a gift for her father. He does not have all that much self confidence so every little bit helps! She invents some excuse about needing a ride so she can spend some time with him.

They don’t have much in common. She’s a high strung, highly verbal woman who writes for a newspaper in New York City. He is more quiet and relaxed while being divorced with one daughter; his news comes from the television and he has never been to Manhattan before. As an Army brat she watched her dad serve years abroad but could only imagine what it was like living as an army wife. His relationship seems closer to her father than hers does. She oversleeps on the day after they meet, but he shows up right at o-nine-hundred as promised.

She is reluctant to get involved with him. But after she goes back to New York, they start having long phone calls. He comes to visit. She tells him he has to sleep on the couch and he does, at first.

Due to timeline shifts, the director avoids being too showy with film making techniques but for one scene. They’re talking on the phone, lying down we get a sideways shot of both their faces, which is a weird distraction. But he keeps the actors at the center of things. Adams and Jordan have an easy chemistry together on screen, and there’s a nice bit of humor when their relationship starts to take off.

We also see Dana with her middle school-age son in present day; how her time with Charles shaped her as a mother; how she uses the journal to share Charles with that son he was writing to from half a world away. And in an affecting ending, we see how those lessons have informed Jordan’s own sense of commitment and honor.

“A Journal for Jordan” is a love story about an unlikely romance, a long-distance dad, a single mom and about how love continues to bind them even after death. It wears its heart on its sleeve; it’s unpretentious and sincere as a homemade valentine.

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