By not tying Jess entirely to her race – but not ignoring it either – director Strouse allows Jessica to be a fully rounded character. While she mourns her relationship, she’s not entirely defined by it, and while she’s frustrated by not achieving her true dream of becoming a playwright, she’s not bitter and she still works by teaching acting classes to children. She is not a woman who is defined by the men she sleeps with or the job that she does. “I’m really complicated”, she tells Boone after giving him a collection of plays to read. And what a delight it is to get to watch a complicated black woman try and work it all out on screen. If Jessica James is the face of a new kind of film about millennial women in crisis, then the future looks to be incredible.