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Dec 05, 2014Nursebob rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
It’s 1962 and for ten-year old Eve Batiste, daughter of Louis Batiste “the most successful coloured doctor in Louisiana”, life is just one long lazy summer. Graced—or perhaps cursed—by her slightly eccentric family, life is never dull: there’s suave aunt Mozelle, saddled with perpetual widowhood, whose crazy voodoo visions have a tendency to come true; older sister Cisely pretending to be mature beyond her years, and mom Roz who’s finding it increasingly difficult to ignore her husband’s drunken philandering. But her childhood innocence begins its downward descent one night when Eve witnesses one of her father’s indiscretions, and as lies and revelations begin to pile up the ugliness of the real world begins to overwhelm her youthful idealism leading to anger, recrimination…and a fateful visit to a backwater witch. Softening his sometimes fatalistic sense of reality with charm and just a touch of the supernatural, writer/director Kasi Lemmons' keen eye for emotional nuances hits the mark thanks to a fine cast and a literate script. His bayou settings, festooned with Spanish moss and magical portents, at first reflect his little protagonist’s feelings of wonder, but as her eyes are slowly opened the snakes and spiders she once took for granted come to represent some of life’s darker aspects. A powerful and poignant coming-of-age tale.