Premise: A
tumultuous summer in the lives of a black family living in a Creole-American
Louisiana community in the 1960s.
There's a point of distinction that I run into more
and more often as I've opened up the list of movies I see. There are movies
that I like and movies that I'm glad to have seen. Eve's Bayou is a
great example of this distinction. I didn't care much for this movie. The story
is a sort of family melodrama that doesn't do a lot for me. I've seen enough
stories about cheating fathers getting caught, children keeping their secret,
and wives navigating how to respond. But, I am glad I saw this movie, because
this isn't a perspective I've seen much. This is a movie about a well-to-do
black community in the South in the 1960s that actually gets to be about
something other than racism. The movie is filled with great location details. The Southern mysticism is fun. Even though I didn't care much for the actual
story, I liked the world it was set in. The performances are quite good too. A
young Jurnee Smollett-Bell and Meagan Good are pretty great. It's nice to see a
Samuel L. Jackson performance that doesn't rely entirely on his charisma. Debbi
Morgan is one of those actresses I've seen in a dozen things but never gets a
role this juicy. So, I'm glad to have Eve's Bayou in my rolodex of movie
references now.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
No comments:
Post a Comment