A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I was craving a drama, light on the exaggeration, yet, rich and satisfying to my emotional needs. I found it in the 1999 classic, Eve's Bayou. The time is 1962; the place is the Louisiana Bayou... Not the "Bayou" that conjures visions of crocodile infestations and starving mosquitoes-No. I'm referring to a huge, white, plantation style home that sits on bay area property... Property, owned by it's inhabitants (the Batiste family) for centuries.They are privileged, intelligent, mysterious people who make you want to know more about them.Early on, we discover by the narrative of an adult Eve, that it is through the lineage and fine reputation of Dr. Louis Baptiste (played by Samuel Jackson) that these luxuries can be afforded. Furthermore, it is Dr. Batiste, who resides over this family as husband, father, son and brother. He is, by the very definition, a patriarch of southern distinction-the type whose presence can fill a room without speaking one word. But like all flawless appearances, there lies beneath, a blemish or two... Unfortunately it is the young and precocious Eve (played by Jurnee Smollett-Bell) who discovers these imperfections... Or should I say, sensitive "improprieties' and becomes traumatized. Supporting the eclipse of a life they once knew are the emotional dramatizations of her older sister, Cisely (Meagan Good), and her glamorous, sheltered mother, Roz (Lynn Whitfield)-One coming of age, the other, spiritually displaced.For the full review please visit https://niume.com/post/231587 or cootw.com

This came highly recommended by a NYT reviewer, but yikes, before I was 1/2 way through it became real torture. Cast is mainly female--old & young--and they just scream and carry on in jealous nonsense with fortune telling and "voodoo?" thrown in. Samuel Jackson-- who the heck convinced him to play in this mess-- is reduced to a clichéd prop. 1960 Louisiana Bayou?? with blacks constantly in haute bourgeois costume with Connecticut accents is beyond laughable. The latter is cool--if that's what the director wants--but the story is pure soap opera slush! Bayou photography is great, and set against these ridiculous characters it comes as a great relief. The movie just slogs along with a cast of over-dressed harpies, both old and young.

Kasi Lemmons wrote and directed "Eve's Bayou," with such precision that I'm astounded that she hasn't had anything as good since this feature. Orson Welles is still famous for "Citizen Kane" after which he never reached such heights again.Samuel L. Jackson is a doctor who has a monogamy problem, constantly cheating on his wife, played by Lynn Whitfield. They have two daughters, Eve of the title, Jurnee Smollett is awesome as the lead character of this story and her sister Cisely(Meagan Good) is also a charming child actress. The two worship their father but they eventually discover his shortcomings as a husband.The two young sisters steal this film, an absorbing, tragic family drama of Shakespearean proportions. Lemmons has created a memorable classic.

Kasi Lemmons has invigorated and enriched her debut film, "Eve's Bayou", through the use of a thousand details, a strong sense of time and place, outstanding characterizations and a display of energy and cinematic flair that marks an advance on any other film released in 1997. Lemmons works with such piercing fervor and intelligence that "Eve's Bayou" just about transcends its tidy moral design."Eve's Bayou" is as good a compromise of fact and fiction as you could hope for -- and still call it a movie. Lemmons directed this with a single-mindedness and attention to detail that makes it riveting. She doesn't make the mistake of adding cornball little subplots to popularize the material; she knows she has a great story, and she tells it with such realism that feels like we're apart of the Batiste family. This is a powerful story, one of 1997's best films, told with great clarity and acted like a finely tuned powerful fire(bravo Debbi Morgan).