Terry McMillan Presents: Forever (2024)
When Johnnie Taylor arrives home from military deployment, the life he’d left behind is in disarray and unrecognizable. His soon to be ex-wife has stripped their matrimonial home of his possessions and the man he thought was his best friend, tasked with “taking care” of his wife while he was away, has taken to sleeping with her instead. Well, welcome home Johnnie!
In Forever (2024), the second of a pair of new movies (the other being Tempted by Love) produced for the Lifetime Network by Terry McMillan, the queen of romantic popular fiction, Johnnie Taylor (played by the evergreen Taye Diggs) falls hard for the all-work and no-play Carlie Walters (played by the beautiful and talented Meagan Good). Written by Bart Baker and directed by Charles Murray, the movie follows the African American couple as their romance blossoms, leading to marriage, family, and challenges like a major health crisis, and more.
Interestingly, Johnnie and Carlie’s “meet cute” is not so cute. After speeding away in his beloved antique mustang convertible from the home that his ex-best friend shares with his almost ex-wife, it’s police officer Carlie and her bestie and partner Levi Ryan (played by Jeremy Urann) who pull Johnnie over. Levi recognizes and warmly welcomes the local sport’s hero back to town. You see, Johnnie’s come home to resume his baseball coaching job at a local high school. Carlie is aloof and professional. But the tension of the speeding ticket does not prohibit Johnnie from noticing Carlie’s radiant beauty.
Part two of the “meet cute” is even more dramatic. While Johnnie dines at a local diner he witnesses the abusive behaviour of a teenage boy named Tim Gunner (played by Chris Angelis) towards his black girlfriend. Realizing the boy is one of his players, Johnnie intervenes ordering him to leave the restaurant (on his own) when Carlie arrives and misinterprets the exchange. Once the smoke clears, Carlie expresses gratitude to Johnnie who has intervened to protect her daughter Leslie (played by Leesie Pinto) who Carlie promptly banishes to their home. At Johnnie’s invitation, Carlie shares a meal and something more, insights about her life as a working, single mom of three daughters. (Their father has done a Terry McMillan Disappearing Act.) But instead of being frightened off by the complexity of Carlie’s life, Johnnie wants more.
Thus begins his quest for a “real date” which he imprudently embarks upon by trying to get another speeding ticket. When Carlie finally pulls him over again, her scolding manner does not match the note she writes on the “ticket,” Thursday night would be good!
The conversation flows during their first date at an upscale restaurant when Johnnie opens up revealing that he feels like a kite caught in a windstorm. Carlie’s poignant insight is that maybe he just needs someone to “reel him back in”. The blessing of Carlie and Johnnie is that their instant connection prompts them to risk vulnerability, and instead of retreating behind pretty one-liners and best-foot-forward falsehoods, they decide to share, exposing their wounds and emotional tender spots. So, it is perhaps unsurprising that Carlie’s revelation that it has been two years since she last had sex, leads to them ending up at Johnnie’s house doing just that after they leave the restaurant. That the mattress is initially in the back yard and then on the living room floor is not an indication of an extreme or bachelor lifestyle, but insight into how Johnnie is coping with PTSD after deployment; that is, sleeping outside under the stars in a way that is reminiscent of his military life.
But their first time is clearly not a one-night stand and as Johnnie brings Carlie home to her daughters he reveals that he has a feeling in his gut about her and about them and he wants to know that he is not alone in that space of desire and longing for something more, with her. He isn’t.
As the movie unfolds Johnnie bravely adapts to a life with Carlie which of course includes her three beloved daughters, two of whom are challenging teenagers (sometimes bordering on the obnoxious). But as the pair fall in love, Carlie boldly carves out space for her new relationship, asserting boundaries with and for her daughters, and striving to live her truth not just as a mother, but as a woman. Johnnie for his part shines as the head coach of the local high school team and is recruited by the manager of a college team who offers twice the salary and the promise of the manager’s post in the not-too-distant future. Johnnie’s repeated rejection of his dream job is a sign of how much he prioritizes a life with Carlie and the girls. Meanwhile, as Carlie identifies Johnnie’s PTSD, she does not berate him or bombard him with intrusive questions. She simply strokes and comforts him, crawling onto his lap to join him when he leaves their bed to retreat to a deck chair on the back porch.
The drama soon arrives in the form of an unexpected challenge disguised as a blessing. When Carlie thinks that her missed periods are the sign of a pregnancy, Johnnie is thrilled, and the pair are married committing to each other and their family. But Carlie’s pregnancy symptoms are actually the signs of a catastrophic health crisis, a cancerous uterine tumor that must be removed immediately. As Carlie undergoes surgery and chemotherapy it is Johnnie, devoted husband and stepdad who holds it down at home, work, and the hospital, giving Carlie the space to recuperate.
We were holding our collective breath waiting to see if Carlie would survive her cancer diagnosis, only to receive the gut-punch of the tragedy that awaited her upon her return to work. While talking on the phone to Johnnie, Carlie enters a convenience store during her shift, interrupting a robbery in progress by the spiraling Gunner who shoots her in the neck. Although Levi intervenes and hurriedly calls for backup, the wound is too serious. Collapsed on the floor and choking on her blood, Carlie strains to tell Johnnie she loves him one more time before she takes her last breath.
The depth of his love for Carlie and his family is evident when Johnnie arrives at the scene. Commanding the girls to stay in the car, he rushes into the store, peeling back the white sheet to look at his deceased wife. Agony and disbelief mingle on his face as he tentatively tries to embrace her, finally kissing her lifeless body before Levi pulls him away. As the camera follows Johnnie’s exit from the store we see that in place of the words she could not speak, Carlie has written her final message of love to Johnnie on the floor in her own blood. If you aren’t crying by this point in the movie, we think you might be dead inside!
The final stages of the film lead us through Carlie’s funeral and Johnnie’s quest to secure their daughters. But the trouble isn’t done yet as the girls’ absent biological father shows up demanding to take over as the primary caregiver even though he has been missing in action for years. To understand just how absent he has been, the youngest daughter Tessa (played by Chloe Elise Ellis) does not even recognize him.
Johnnie’s devotion to Carlie and their daughters, a devotion signaled in the film’s title, includes a selflessness which allows him to prioritize their needs. When Levi (now resuming his study of law after Carlie’s death), advises him that he has no legal standing because he did not adopt the girls before Carlie’s death, Johnnie realizes that the priority is for them to stay together in their mother’s home where they can “feel her”. Johnnie’s solution is to arrange for their biological father to move into their family home with the three girls while he takes the higher paying baseball job in another town so that he will one day be able to pay for their college tuitions. As he gathers them by the wooden boat he has built in their backyard as a haven where they can retreat to feel safe, he explains to them that he will always be their dad and always be one phone call away. The film concludes with a reunion at a backyard wedding, and you might be surprised about who’s getting married.
This touching film is a moving, emotional tale about how vulnerability can open you up, how devotion can transform your life, and how love can last more than a lifetime, Forever to be exact.