If you weren't there, then unfortunately this movie will be beyond compassion for you. Which as I say is a shame because although some of the acting is amateurish, it is meant to be for realism. Let's face it--in real life, we don't say things in an exacting or perfect way, even when we mean to. In this sense, it works. This, however, does not apply to our "known" actors in this film, notably Jodie Foster (born a natural). The fact that the other 3 girls are not accomplished only adds to the story--Jodie plays the glue that struggles to keep their friendship close, even with the obvious feeling of fatality. Meaning that no matter how close friends are, eventually there are some people that just fade away, no matter how you try.
And therein is the core of the movie. It's not about partying, it's not about sexuality, but about these 4 girls and their final time as still young girls before they have to go the world alone.
If you have ever had a friendship like that in your life, you will feel this movie--it will mean a lot to you, no matter what era it is set in, or what era you grew up in. We all knew these girls in school, or at the very least knew of them. We all knew the frustrated virgin, half wanting to hold onto childhood and half wanting desperately to grow up and thinking that will do it for her. We all knew the boy-crazy one, the fashion plate whose vanity hides her fear of the world, her fear of acceptance. We all knew the party girl, the one they whispered about, with tales of not only her sad home life but of her notorious exploits. And we all knew the "mother figure", the one a little more real, a little more grounded, a little more sad because she knew what would happen. Maybe you were one of those girls. Maybe, like me, you had been each one at one time or another...
This film really captures that fragile time in life when want, needs, pressures, womanhood, childhood, the world and loneliness are all embodied in each female's head, each factor on the precipice. Which aspect do you hang on to? What do you toss over the edge, no matter how you may want to hold on? And how painful is goodbye to everything you've known? That's what this movie is--steps into womanhood while clinging onto childhood, and how damn tough it is to keep walking. If you were there, you know...and love this film, as I do. Aching and tenderly done. A fine piece of captured femininity.

Things get dull early an often in this in this mawkish jazz bio fiction written and directed by Spike Lee.
Bleek Gilliam (Denzell Washington) is a happenin' jazz trumpeter that fronts a quintet packing them in at Below the Underdog. His problems include an incompetent manager, a stage hogging sax player and two girlfriends that he's playing musical mattress with. The real love of his life though is his trumpet and his music. The band's manager, Giant, has a dangerous gambling problem and proves to be an ineffective negotiator with greedy club owners and would be best jettisoned but Bleek remains loyal for as long as possible. It will prove to his undoing as an artist but ironically contribute to his growth as a man.
As Bleek, Denzell Washington is all wrong as the ambitious trumpeter with a babe on each arm. He's too sweet a guy to be so self centered about his art, dispensing patience and love to those close to him with a low key remoteness. He simply lacks the fire. Wesley Snipes who plays Henderson the sax player would have been far more suited for the role but even he would have to mouth the flaccid throw away scribblings of Lee's torpid dialogue. As Giant, Lee hits the trifecta with an abysmal performance to match his writing and direction. Loosely attempting to mirror the grubby but sympathetic Ratso Rizzo to Bleek's Joe Buck he adopts a limp and even the "I'm walkin' here" moment from Midnight Cowboy. In this case you wish the taxi would run him over and be done with it.
Lee's script is all tepid argument, heavy handed ribbing and veiled insult with some requisite clumsy editorializing that Lee has to inject to remain down. The scenes between the band members backstage and in rehearsal lack spark and are only surpassed in dreariness by the Bleek, Giant conversations that have an ad lib look and go in circles. Completing this travesty is Lee's pretentious visual style. Tracking shots, zooms and pans are wasted and without significance to scenes. They just wander.
Blues is Lee's love letter to jazz (made implicit by the mountains of memorabilia plastered all over the sets) and it's all sentimental clap trap that lacks passion and verve. Jazz on film is better served by Tavernier's "Round Midnight" and Eastwood's "Bird" which get below the surface, reveal more sides of the form, the pain behind it in addition to offering infinitely superior lead performances by Forrest Whitaker and the real deal Dexter Gordon. This Spike Lee Joint doesn't even offer a mild buzz. It's some pretty bad homegrown.