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Due south >> Eve's Bayou is a messed-up movie about a messed-up family by MATTHEW HAYS
Eve's Bayou is a coming-of-age story set in the southern U.S., where nine-year-old Eve (Jurnee Smollett) struggles with sibling rivalry, a mentally unstable aunt and a philandering father (Samuel L. Jackson, who shares a producer credit). Smollett manages a fine performance in the film, holding her own with the likes of heavyweight Jackson. Meagan Good, who plays Eve's older sister Cisely, is also a pleasure as a 14-year-old finding puberty a difficult transition. Smollett experiences a nasty shock early in the film, having fallen asleep in a back room at a party, only to awaken to witness her father doing the nasty with a wayward woman. His extra-marital flings don't stop there, and as the country doctor, he delivers more than medicine to the lonely women he makes house calls to. Much of the film revolves around Jackson's infidelity. Eve's Bayou emerges as one of those films you want desperately to like and recommend to others, but can't quite bring yourself to. It has its bits and pieces, certainly; when Eve's psychic aunt has visions of a child getting hit by a car, Eve's mother grounds all the children in the house, insisting she won't let any of them end up like her psychic sister's prophetic vision. The scenes of the kids going stir-crazy for days are well-handled, alternately funny and poignant. The trouble lies largely with Lemmons' ambitious script, which waivers uneasily between overwrought melodrama, superstitious dalliance and sitcom humour. At times Lemmons' clear inexperience as a writer is delightful; film scripts are far too prone to formula, and Lemmons wanders fairly efficiently for the first half of the movie. But a certain hokeyness sets in at half-time, and soon enough Eve's Bayou becomes wound up in a sub-plot gone terribly wrong, leading to a predictable and unnecessarily histrionic climax, dragging down its talented cast, both young and old. All the great actors in the world couldn't quite resurrect Eve's Bayou, a fantastic film just waiting to unwind itself from a bit too much mediocrity. Eve's Bayou opens this Friday, Jan. 30. See film listings for showtimes
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Big-screen representations of children are--more often than not--pretty darn problematic. Spielberg has probably been the worst culprit, with the ultra-cute set he glorified in films like E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Hook. In her directorial debut, actress Kasi Lemmons takes formidable risks--including the depiction of children--risks that certainly don't always work but are nonetheless admirable for a first-time filmmaker.