"Spiral's Of Sin in the Bayou"
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What You Need To Know:
While there are positive portrayals of love, the family relationships are generally disturbing. Although the acting excels and the plot has its unexpected twist, the dialogue misses its mark at times and causes humor where none is intended. EVE'S BAYOU portrays the tragic consequences of sin, but there are few moral messages in the movie. Particularly disturbing is the movie's promotion of psychic powers for handling life's difficult circumstances. The characters are oblivious to the fact that voodoo and God don't mix and that Christ offers the only poultice for their pain.
Content:
(Ro, OO, LLL, V, SSS, NNN, A, D, M) Romantic worldview with extensive adultery & elements of voodoo practices; 13 profanities, 4 vulgarities & 13 obscenities; fatal shooting, fatal accident involving child, parents slap daughter, & siblings fight; adultery depicted, reference to pregnancy from affair, menstrual blood shown, incestuous kissing & hugging, suggestive dancing, body rubbing, & reference to slave owner having illegitimate children with slave; brief full nudity; alcohol use by adults & children & drunkenness; smoking; and, miscellaneous immorality including lying, arguments, stealing, references to mental illness, eavesdropping, reference to cannibalism, & disrespect toward parent
More Detail:
First time feature film by writer/director Kasi Lemmons, EVE’S BAYOU is already being treated as Academy-Award material. Featuring an African-American family in the South, it is a powerful testimony of the wages of sin. In the swamps of Louisiana in 1962, physician Louis Batiste (Samuel L. Jackson) is financially successful and respected in his Creole community. He enjoys the love of his beautiful wife, Roz (Lynn Whitfield), and his children. However, his constant desire to be a hero leads him into several adulterous affairs, one of which is accidentally viewed by his 9-year-old daughter, Eve (Jurnee Smollett).
The movie centers on Eve’s reaction to that incident and her 14-year-old sister, Cisely (Meagan Good), secretly telling Eve that their father had an incestuous affair with her. This makes Eve angry, and she wants her father dead. She seeks the help of a local voodoo expert, named Elzora, marvelously portrayed by Diahann Carroll.
Louis’s sister Mozell Batiste Delacroix (Debbie Morgan), a three-time widow, also has engaged in adultery, with deadly results. Mozell acts as a “psychic counselor” and offers prayers and voodoo to members of the community. She has visions of the future which always prove true. The sinful spiral of the movie continues as Mozell has an affair with an artist who is looking for his missing wife.
While there are positive portrayals of family love, the relationships between the relatives are disturbing. For example, Mozell and a grandmother express harsh feelings towards the children, and at one point, Mozell threatens to kill Eve if she tells about one of her father’s affairs.
The acting is excellent, particularly from young Jurnee as the innocent child and from Jackson as the womanizing doctor. The plot also is rewarding with its unexpected twist. At times, however, the dialogue misses its mark and causes humor when none is intended. The photography of the swamp is beautiful, and the black-and-white psychic images are particularly effective.
EVE’S BAYOU offers an accurate portrayal of the tragic consequences of sin. The movie offers few other positive moral messages, however. Mozell refers to the Divine but later questions its existence. Particularly disturbing is the promotion of non-Christian supernatural powers for handling life’s difficult circumstances. The characters seem oblivious to the fact that voodoo and God don’t mix, and that Christ offers the only poultice for their pain.
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