Something New
Something New is a 2006 American romantic comedy directed by Sanaa Hamri, written by Kriss Turner, and produced by Stephanie Allain, distributed by Focus Features. It stars Sanaa Lathan as Kenya McQueen, a career-driven accountant who falls for Brian Kelly (Simon Baker), a white landscape architect, and must choose between the partner her family and friends expect and the unexpected romance.1 • 2
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | February 3, 2006 (United States); Los Angeles opening February 3, New York the week of February 31 • 2 |
| Rating and length | PG-13; 100 minutes per AFI and Focus Features, 99 minutes per some reviews1 • 2 • 3 |
| Genre | Romance, comedy1 |
| Lead roles | Sanaa Lathan as Kenya Denise McQueen; Simon Baker as Brian Kelly; Blair Underwood as Mark Harper2 |
| Key crew | Director Sanaa Hamri; writer Kriss Turner; producer Stephanie Allain; cinematographer Shane Hurlbut; editor Melissa Kent; music by Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman2 |
| Central themes | Interracial dating, the "black tax," and Kenya's search for an "IBM" (Ideal Black Man)4 |
Spoilers
Plot
Kenya McQueen (Sanaa Lathan) has a successful career, good friends, and family, but her love life is out of control. She meets the free-spirited Brian Kelly (Simon Baker), and when her ideal man, Mark Harper (Blair Underwood), arrives on the scene, she must decide between the relationship everyone expects and the romance no one expected.1 Kenya is reluctant to hire Brian to landscape her yard after circumstances throw them together, but his talent makes refusing difficult, and his presence encourages her repressed, more vivacious side.5
The film frames Kenya's search in terms she and her friends use themselves: she is looking for an IBM, an Ideal Black Man, while contending with the "black tax," the idea that African Americans must work twice as hard as their lighter-skinned counterparts to earn the same respect and rewards.4 Time's retrospective listing notes that the movie pokes fun at the couple's cultural differences without belittling Kenya's real concerns about what divides them and how the world will see them.6
Production
The film was a first feature for Sanaa Hamri, who had previously directed music videos and concert footage for Prince and Mariah Carey.7 Stephanie Allain, whose credits include Hustle & Flow, produced; Shane Hurlbut was the director of photography, Melissa Kent the editor, Mayne Berke the production designer, and Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman composed the music.2 The supporting cast includes Mike Epps as Walter, Donald Faison as Kenya's brother Nelson, Alfre Woodard, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Golden Brooks, and Taraji P. Henson.1 • 2
Themes and reception
Critics read the film as a hybrid of romantic comedy and social-problem picture. Steve Vineberg, writing in The Christian Century, argued that it focuses entirely on Kenya's interior battle over how to define herself, in the racial terms she has always accepted or in broader humanistic ones that would allow her to share her life with a white man; he noted that Brian, as a secondary character who experiences no struggle, creates a structural imbalance, but that Kenya's struggle makes the film a resonant and daring romance for a Black filmmaker to offer African-American audiences.5
Roger Ebert called it a touching story about a Black professional woman facing problems in the workplace and the marriage market, one that delivers the usual pleasures of a love story and something more.3 The Los Angeles Times was more reserved: Kevin Crust found it superficial and formulaic but pleasant, crisply written by Turner, and praised its portrayal of an upper-middle-class Black community seldom seen in mainstream film, while noting that producer Allain's claim that it was "the first interracial love story of the 21st century with a black woman and a white man" overstated the novelty of the subject.7 Slant Magazine criticized the film's heavy use of color as metaphor, from skin tones to interior design to Kenya's red toenails, and its race-conscious rom-com formula.4 An Eye for Film review found the treatment of issues such as the "black tax" stronger than the romantic-comedy mechanics, with the film falling between mindless romance and cerebral drama.8
Common Sense Media rates the film appropriate for ages 14 and up, describing it as a romantic dramedy that tackles the tensions of interracial dating, with sexual references, some profanity, and drinking at parties and restaurants.9
Legacy
The film has remained a touchstone in discussions of Black romantic comedies. Time included it in a list of the best romantic comedies of the early 2000s,6 and academic work has read it as a postfeminist text, noting that the title plays on the bridal rhyme "something borrowed, something blue" and that changing the typical race of the romantic-comedy protagonist places the film in a space of postfeminist critique.10
References
- Something New, Focus Features
- Something New (2006), AFI Catalog
- Guess who's coming to landscape?, Roger Ebert, 2006
- Review: Something New, Slant Magazine, 2006
- Racial divide, Steve A. Vineberg, The Christian Century, March 7, 2006
- The 15 Best Romantic Comedies from the Early 2000s, Time
- 'New' is sweet but uses old formulas, Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times, February 3, 2006
- Something New (2006) movie review, Eye for Film, 2006
- Something New, Parents' Guide & Movie Review, Common Sense Media
- Shannon A. Harry, Whose Fantasy Is This? Postfeminist American Popular Culture, Ohio University dissertation, 2013
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2005 to 2006
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
Your notes
© 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI. Free to use with credit under the Edgepedia Community License. Developers: read Edgepedia by API or MCP. Embed a reference card.