The story of Best Man develops a bit slowly while we follow Harper (Taye Diggs), the lead character and narrator, to a wedding and a reunion with his best friends from College. They are all African-American yuppies. Harper, who has come to New York from his home in Chicago, is on the cusp of his first novel publication. The book isn’t supposed to come out till after the wedding, but some of his friends have already gotten a copy. The book is based on Harper’s college experiences and intimate exploits with his friends. The tension grows while the book travels from hand to hand and finally ends up with Lance, the groom to be. The core issue of fidelity, monogamy, and commitment emerge as the inner and outer conflict of the characters.

We are most impacted by the powerful, alpha-male dominance of Lance, whose change from being a womanizer to becoming a devoted, monogamous husband-to-be is mostly based on the possessive male pride of winning and keeping a virgin. He is a Christian, but his belief and memorized scriptures have not been enough to keep his zipper up.

Lance believes he is the first and only lover in his bride-to-be's life. Such is, in his imagination, supposed to be enough for him to muster up the stuff to marry her and be loyal. We know through Harper’s book that she was not as loyal to Lance as he presumed. Once Lance learns of this, he immediately calls off the wedding.

Best Man, though populated by interesting women, is fundamentally a male morality tale that challenges players to become men through monogamy and the respect of a woman. The more these people realize that their obsessive urge to score with women has been a post-adolescent self-absorbed jag that must be set aside, the more they open up to the deeper values of their relationships and their power.

The victory for virtue as defined by this film, however, is not easy and does not rely on conventional finger waging notions and stereotypes. In fact, the most interesting and best acted character is Quentin (Terrence Dashon Howard). He slyly and wisely presents the argument that we are not meant to be monogamous, but he is consistent in not expecting men and women to live by a double standard. He is in many ways correctly cynical about all of his friends and the rest of us. It is a testament to confident story telling when a character presents a contradictory position so well. In addition, Quentin is hilariously madcap with his quips.

When we finally get to the wedding and hear the vows of the groom and bride as a celebration of their commitment and union, the movie literally blooms with sweetness and beauty. This may sound corny, but when it is well done as it was here, we have insatiable appetites for seeing people face their selfish expectations and hypocrisy to become true partners in love and life.

As a sociological observation, it is of note that Spike Lee’s company produced this movie. Apparently, the able writer-director, Malcolm D. Lee, is a relative. The setting is affluent, literate, intelligent, success driven, neurotically yuppie and entirely African-American. (We don’t recall seeing a white face on the screen.) In this, Best Man offers a refreshing and powerful diversion from the heaviness of urban blight and racial oppression as the world of blacks on film. As real as these phenomena are, blacks are diverse in their accomplishments and social strata.

Though some may criticize Best Man for its lavishness, we remember that it was the swirling, dancing make believe on the big screen that carried many through the darkest throws of the depression. African-Americans and indeed all of us benefit when the fantasy of success as a motivating story telling metaphor transports us to a more hopeful vision of possibility that helps us create a better reality. It gives us the stuff to imagine and hope for emergence and renaissance. It also allows us to focus on relationship issues and interpersonal morality rather than poverty and injustice.