This Guardian review looks back at Personal Problems, a 1980 improvised video melodrama directed by Bill Gunn (best known for the cult horror film Ganja & Hess) alongside author Ishmael Reed. Shot on rough analogue video and originally intended for television, the film is praised for its raw energy and emotional intimacy despite a muddy sound mix, with the critic drawing comparisons to Cassavetes, Altman and even Curb Your Enthusiasm for its improvised, comic realism. It stands out as an early, low-budget precursor to today's smartphone-shot films, capturing Black working-class life in New York with pioneering, experimental flair.

The story centres on Johnnie-Mae, a Harlem hospital nurse played by non-professional actor and poet Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, whose crowded home life and extramarital affair with a jazz musician (played by Sam Waymon, brother of Nina Simone) drive a sprawling, subplot-heavy narrative. Other threads include her husband Charles's own secret dalliance, family conflicts over housing relatives, and a brother's arrest for criminal dealings. Running two and a half hours across two TV-style parts, the film resists conventional narrative shape, instead unfolding as an open-ended "slice of life" that the reviewer calls exhilarating and pioneering.