EVE'S BAYOU
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: A ten-year-old Creole girl grows up
during one hot Louisiana summer. Director and
writer Kasi Lemmons draws some very nicely defined
characters for whom the viewer has real interest
and empathy. One of the most touching and
engrossing films of the year. It is also very well
photographed with some very memorable images.
Rating: 7 (0 to 10) +2 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 14 positive, 1 negative, 5 mixed
The year is supposedly 1962, though there is a timelessness to the narrative. Eve Batiste (played by Jurnee Smollett) narrates the story and begins by saying this is the year that she killed her father. That statement hangs over the entire film and gives what seems to be a series of random remembered incidents a direction, though the viewer is unsure how figuratively or literally she means she killed her father. Eve lives on the bayou in the town of Eve's Bayou. Her father, Louis (Samuel L. Jackson) is the attractive town doctor who has a tendency to fool around with his more attractive female patients, cheating on his wife Roz (Lin Whitfield). Also in the family are Eve's older sister Cisely (Meagan Good), her young brother Poo, and Louis's sister Mozelle Batiste Delacroix (Debbie Morgan). Louis gives Eve the impression that he prefers his oldest daughter over her, and Eve feels the sting of that rejection as well as feeling a little bit left out. One evening Eve catches her father making love to the wife of a friend and this starts things changing in the family. Eve does not want to believe what she has seen but is only half willing to accept her sister Cisely's fabricated explanation that it was all innocent. And the matter remains in both sisters' minds. Writer/director Kasi Lemmons makes this one of several stories unfolding at the same time. Aunt Mozelle is a seer with psychic abilities to see into the lives of others, but cannot use her powers to help herself: she has outlived multiple husbands and blames herself for their deaths.
The film at no time ties itself to any current events outside of the community of Eve's Bayou, Louisiana. For that matter, in spite of a black cast of characters, the subject of race is totally absent. Virtually the same story could have been told in the white or the Chinese community, for example, with only minor alterations. One such modification might have to involve the acceptance of voodoo in this story. This is a world in which fortune tellers and psychics are authentic. The acceptance of magic is not the main thrust of the film but it adds to the texture. An old voodoo priestess seems to be half sham, yet her magic appears to work. She is nicely played by Diahann Carroll in a real departure from her squeaky clean image back when she was one of the first female black leads in a TV show.
It pretty much goes without saying that Lemmons would get a good performance from the likes of Carroll and Jackson. These are well- established actors who will give good performances as second nature. It is perhaps a different talent to get good performances from children. Getting an acceptable and by-the- numbers performance from them is not difficult but getting a performance with some depth is a lot harder, because children frequently are overconfident in front of a camera and do not know how to control a performance. As the lead Smollett has to carry the film without reducing it to a children's film, and her performance is fully up to adult standards. She apparently understands acting and that makes a real difference to the film. Meagan Good as the somewhat enigmatic older sister does not have as much to do, but also gives a very solid performance. Amy Vincent's cinematography includes at least a few very effective images and adds greatly to flavor of the film.
EVE'S BAYOU is a rich and emotional look at one small community and is not a bad debut writing and directing effort by Kasi Lemmons. I give it a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a 2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1997 Mark R. Leeper
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