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Eve's Bayou (1997)

Director: Kasi Lemmons

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Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

'Memory is a selection of images - some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain. The summer I killed my father, I was ten years old...' Thus Eve, at the beginning of this rich, assured directorial debut, set in a Louisiana backwater. Eve Batiste (Smollett) is second daughter to the elegant Roz (Whitfield) and her husband Louis (Jackson), the popular local doctor. Louis is an effortless charmer, debonair and handsome - that's his trouble. When Eve catches him kissing a woman in the shed, she does her best to block out the memory of this betrayal, but the past is not so easily contained. The film is suffused in a lovely amber light, whence the material slips easily into a spirit world of ghosts, fancy and voodoo curses. Yet the languid air and lazy ambience defuses these 'excessive' elements and keep the focus squarely on character. The female competition for Louis' affections is movingly played out from the youngster's perspective. Writer/director Kasi Lemmons shows sweet judgment here, doesn't caricature or demonise the errant father, and elicits a host of nuanced performances from women of all ages.

Author: TCh 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

  • charda said...
    Posted on Sep 26 2009 21:27 eve's bayou was a wonderful movie but i would like to know what song did lauryn hill sing on the video at the end of the movie
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Cast & crew

Director: Kasi Lemmons

Producer: Caldecot Chubb, Samuel L Jackson

Cast: Samuel L Jackson, Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, Vondie Curtis Hall, Branford Marsalis, Lisa Nicole Carson, Jurnee Smollett full cast

Duration: 108 mins


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