hyped garbage

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Brilliant and touching

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

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

LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!!!One of my ALL TIME favorite movies ever made. Brilliant acting by the whole cast. Eve's Bayou is a spectacular movie. The color and scenery is wonderful and the people are elegant and troubled. Even the character's names stir up visions of dark swamp water and sultry heat. The story is told and seen through the eyes of little Eve Batiste played by a wonderful young actress named Jurnee Smollett. Eve takes us deep into her world which is filled with colorful characters and complex personalities.Diahann Carroll is fabulous as the old fortune teller Elzora with her insane laughter. Debbi Morgan as Aunt Mozelle Batiste Delacroix is something to behold. Aunt Mozelle has promised her family that she will not use her "second sight" to tell fortunes, but neighbors won't let her keep her promise. They seek her out to find missing husbands anyway. Lynn Whitfied as the manor born wife is beautiful and poised as she tries to keep her family together in spite of her wandering husband (Samuel L. Jackson). Jackson is very sexy in this movie and his character has roving eyes as well as roving hands that don't stop even when he is caught in a compromising position by his youngest daughter, Eve. This starts a set of events that lead to the total destruction of an already deeply troubled family.Although this movie did not make history at the box office my guess is that it will become a cult classic. Years from now this movie will be viewed for what it is, a brilliantly produced film. You can literally feel the Louisiana heat from Eve's Bayou. danceability. Amsterdam

which i am embarrassed to admit we only went to see because of the coincidence of the name!! But this absurd 'excuse' to see a film we'd heard nothing about (no publicity or marketing - just an option among several others at our local multiplex cinema, lured in by a beautiful poster which it turned out proved to be a foretaste of a gorgeously shot movie) paid off richly. We are seldom impressed as we were with 'Eve's Bayou'; this layering of memories, filtered through the perceptions of three distinctly different women, was such an intelligent and suspenseful use of the much-abused medium of film, that I thought about and remembered it yesterday after 11 years (!) and decided to rent it again; I am confident I will like it just as much on second viewing. Now that i know it was a low budget first outing for the (female) director (whose DP was likewise female - something which is STILL an anomaly, even today, where commercially released features are concerned), I am simply blown away....Roger Ebert is absolutely right; the fact that this was not nominated for an Academy Award means they were simply not paying attention; for shame! It ought to have been a runaway success, and at very least nominated for Best Director, Best Supporting Actress(es), Best DP, Best Costumes, Best Screenplay. Unfortunately, Kasi Lemmons' follow- up to this (the gruesomely dark 'Valentine' something-or-other) was nowhere near as accomplished as this (though it was still good, by any movie standards). Perhaps she lost heart after being so overlooked? (and if so, who could blame her?!). I hope this film gets a re-release and much belated marketing 'push', with a perhaps more prominent placing at the local DVD stores, at least (I'm having to order my rented copy in 'cause it's not in the store...)!

A family drama like no other, Kasi Lemmons' "Eve's Bayou" is a bleak, mesmerizing rhapsody of family-destruction, defiantly uninterested in peddling Hollywood-style uplift. Lemmons doesn't pretend, and I won't either, that this movie is for everybody. But anyone who cares about ravishing film-making, superb acting and art willing to dive into the mystery of family's secrets will leave this dark drama both shaken and invigorated.This film simply works as a character study, pitilessly well observed and intimately familiar with its terrain. Mrs. Lemmons based her film on a previous short film she'd made. She describes the film as a semi-portrait of her own family. Although is it quite a heavy film, "Eve's Bayou" is far less dolorous than might be expected.