CINEMA-USA: ‘Soul Food’ Cooks Up Box Office Storm

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Oct 21 1997 (IPS) - In recent years, African Americans generally have been portrayed on the movie screen in only two ways: teenage ‘gangstas’ or as comic stereotypes in bawdy, cheerfully vulgar comedies. A new film, however, attempts to break the mold by offering a credible drama about black family life.

‘Soul Food’, written and directed by George Tillman Jr and distributed by Twentieth Century Fox, is part of a small but growing trend of serious black films that deal with relationships more than gunfights or lewd jokes.

Like 1995’s ‘Waiting to Exhale,’ Tillman’s movie has proved itself a hit, earning 30 million dollars in U.S. cinemas in its first three weeks of release. That financial success is already encouraging black film makers, who have struggled for years against the perception that there is no audience for movies on everyday African American life.

Despite the surprise over its success, ‘Soul Food’ owes much of its appeal to a formula that previous all-black films like ‘Waiting to Exhale’ and last year’s ‘The Preacher’s Wife’ also share: a multi-character plot that emphasises family, a willingness to show both poor and middle-class characters realistically, and an omnipresent soul soundtrack.

‘Soul Food’ adds to that formula, as its title implies, an appreciation of black Southern cooking: the fried crawfish, cornbread and back ribs meant to show the cooking traditions observed by black families since slavery. The film’s benign matriarch, Mama Jo (Irma Hall) explains soul food as the embodiment of black families’ desire to make something good out of what little they had.

As a result, the soul food served by Mama Jo’s family every Sunday for dinner is the film’s central metaphor for how African Americans need tradition and family unity to survive. When Mama Jo gets ill from diabetes (surely that high-cholesterol food can’t help), the Sunday dinners stop, and Mama Jo’s three daughters (played by Vanessa Williams, Vivica Fox and Nia Long) face a harsher world.

Here, too, the film observes formula, with each daughter showing a different aspect of modern black life, with one (Williams) a cold, materialistic lawyer, another (Fox) a middle- class mother and the youngest (Long) the newly-wed wife of an ex- criminal. Predictably, as Mama Jo’s health declines, and the dinners are eaten separately, her daughters have to deal with sibling rivalry, affairs and the job woes of their husbands.

Tillman’s script is often obvious at hitting the right, crowd- pleasing points, and there are a number of scenes, from the inevitable fights to the equally inevitable reunions, that are a bit too pat, if appealingly executed. But the film’s virtue lies just as much in its genuine appreciation of the everyday challenges of black life.

When the ex-criminal, Lem (Mekhi Phifer), tries to get a job despite always admitting to his conviction and jail time, Tillman does a wonderful, subtle job of showing the anxiety he faces. In one scene, the camera just focuses on Phifer’s clenched jaw and expectant eyes as he waits for a prospective employer to react to the job form indicating Lem’s criminal record.

Later, when Lem is hired at a printing plant, the look of sheer joy on his face at a job well done is one of the rare glimpses in modern U.S. film of the importance of work. That moment is reflected in the sisters’ grudging acceptance of each other as they silently prepare the food for a Sunday dinner together, and slowly pick up the rhythm of shared responsibilities.

Like many other recent black dramas, the soundtrack is dominated by the smooth, sensitive music of Kenneth ‘Babyface’ Edmonds, who is also the film’s executive producer and husband of the movie’s co-producer, Tracey Edmonds.

The Babyface-composed songs, including a sappy ode to motherhood by Boyz II Men performed over the opening credits, are in keeping with the movie’s strengths and weaknesses: It may be a bit cloying, but the virtues in its sentimentality and traditional structure shine through.