In Brooklyn, Nola Darling dislikes commitment and she has three lovers at the same time. Jamie Overstreet is sweet and looking for a lifelong companion. Greer Childs is a self-obsessed model. Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee) is a loud-mouth childman. Nola, her friends and family narrate the movie talking directly into the camera. Opal Gilstrap is a lesbian who likes Nola. Her free-love policy runs into trouble when the three men discover each other's relationship with Nola.

This is Spike Lee's first full-length feature as a writer/director and he is also a major supporting actor. This announces the arrival of a new American cinematic voice. It's inventive and different. Sure the actors are mostly amateurs but everybody has a good charismatic energy. Spike Lee is bringing a lot of different elements into this movie. Most impressively, he has turned the normal sexual relationship between man and woman upside-down. It is a great debut and an imaginative indie.

The story of Nola Darling's simultaneous sexual relationships with three different men is told by her and by her partners and other friends. All three men wanted her to commit solely to them; Nola resists being "owned" by a single partner.

The New York Times wrote that the film "ushered in (along with Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise) the American independent film movement of the 1980s. It was also a groundbreaking film for African-American filmmakers and a welcome change in the representation of blacks in American cinema, depicting men and women of color not as pimps and whores, but as intelligent, upscale urbanites." Although my feelings on Spike Lee are mixed, I have to say this is a decent film. I love that the message is a hard one to swallow -- that a man can date three women at the same time, but if a woman does it, she is a "freak" or a "nympho" or something. This was a bold thing in 1986 and it remains a bold thing in 2016. Strong, independent, sexual women are a scary thing... will this ever change? (And, we may as well ask, should it ever change?)

The world was introduced to Spike Lee with "She's Gotta Have It", about one Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns) and her three lovers (Lee plays one of them). Everyone in the movie has their own kinds of shortcomings, but they're all honest people, all trying to make their way in the world. Spike Lee was clearly showing the talent that he would bring to his later movies.

I should remind you that this is not a movie for people with short attention spans. Most of it is very low-key, involving a lot of dialog. But it's a very impressive flick at that. Maybe this is mainly a flick for film buffs, but I recommend it to everyone.