DOWN IN THE DELTA (Miramax) Starring: Alfre Woodard, Al Freeman Jr., Esther Rolle, Mary Alice, Mpho Koaho, Wesley Snipes. Screenplay: Myron Goble. Producers: Rick Rosenberg, Bob Christiansen, Victor McGauley, Wesley Snipes and Reuben Cannon. Director: Maya Angelou. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (mild profanity, drug use) Running Time: 111 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
DOWN IN THE DELTA, a paean to the importance of family ties, stays such a course of earnestness and muted conflict that it's hard to work up much emotion about the people involved. The story opens in Chicago, where Loretta Sinclair (Alfre Woodard) is responding to the challenges of unemployment and single parenthood -- including an autistic daughter -- with alcohol and drugs. Recognizing a disaster in the making, Loretta's mother (Mary Alice) threatens Loretta with the loss of her kids if she doesn't take son Thomas (Mpho Koaho) and daughter Tracy (Kulani Hansen) to spend the summer at the Sinclair family's Mississippi homestead. There Loretta meets her Uncle Earl (Al Freeman Jr.), a restaurateur caring for his Alzheimer's-stricken wife Annie (the late Esther Rolle) and committed to holding the Sinclairs together.
The first act of DOWN IN THE DELTA gets it off to a rocky start, presenting the inner city background with all the urgency of a generic studio back-lot. Young men hang around cars looking surly, while second unit footage passes buildings that might as well have "The Projects" stamped across them. It's important to the film's themes that the city feel chaotic, a fragmented collection of people from fragmented homes, but it feels false right down to the crack-house apartment where Loretta goes to get high; even the always-reliable Woodard appears adrift in some mediocre TV-drama episode. Director Maya Angelou almost seems afraid of getting her hands dirty, as though the story's more uplifting message will be sullied by showing inner city life at its worst.
DOWN IN THE DELTA gets much stronger when the setting shifts south, and not just because the location feels more genuine. Al Freeman Jr. radiates patriarchal gravity and moral strength as Uncle Earl, his keen eyes providing an added intelligence to every word of wisdom from his lips. He serves as the example of committed family responsibility -- attending to his ill wife where Loretta's husband ran out on his ill daughter, teaching young Thomas about Sinclair ancestors so he'll understand the power of familial love. Screenwriter Myron Goble occasionally pushes too hard on these themes, stumbling over the vague estrangement of Earl's son Will (Wesley Snipes), but Freeman is always there to bring them back into focus. You never doubt for a moment that Earl is the kind of man who can straighten out the lives of others not by lecturing to them, but by showing them the right way.
DOWN IN THE DELTA is the kind of film you'll probably walk out of with a good feeling, even though you may not necessarily have enjoyed it all that much. The key dramatic points prove to be exceedingly tame stuff, adding to the impression that the film is just cruising along on the momentum of its good intentions. Usually films of this kind struggle by becoming too strident; this one struggles by being not nearly strident enough. Freeman alone makes this film worth watching, guiding both viewers and other characters to an understanding of what can be accomplished through a sense of shared responsibility. Still, it should have been easier to be more supportive of a film with as many valuable things to say. DOWN IN THE DELTA's soft-spoken drama is more likely to move you to respectful nods than to social action.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 delta dawnings: 6.
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