Review: ‘A Journal for Jordan’ is a tear-jerker from Denzel

No, this Denzel Washington-directed love story may leave you sobbing as it explores duty, sacrifice, death and parenthood.

Washington earns his audience’s tears with an unrushed, unshowy style, letting an adult and very human relationship evolve on camera, skipping back and forth through years as it goes from love, birth, death and acceptance.

It’s the story of the real-life romance between Army 1st Sgt. Charles Monroe King and journalist Dana Canedy, two apparent opposites whose lives together were tragically cut short.

She’s a Type-A city girl who likes pop music and is likely to honk at cars ahead at a traffic light when the light is green; he’s a patient country boy who likes oldies on the radio and expressionistic art. He eats salad and hits the gym; she does neither.

She’s focused on her career at The New York Times when we meet her, uninterested in a long-term commitment. “Men are luxuries, not necessities,” she is fond of saying. Until, that is, she meets him.

Michael B. Jordan takes on the role of King and rising star Chanté Adams plays Canedy. Their chemistry on screen is beautifully evident, a shy wistfulness that roars into lust and adoration. They must overcome separation — she’s in New York, he’s in Kentucky — and war, when he’s deployed to Iraq while she is pregnant.