The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat

The-Supremes-at-Earl's-All-You-Can-Eat
The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat

Christmas certainly came around a little early for me with this. It is one of those movies based on women that make a lot of drama. The description, or so it seems in the first hour, emphasizes on three Black women spanning multiple decades of friendship over some almost gastric drama, Tina Mabry’s movie, ‘The Supremes at Earl’s All You Can Eat’. This film is based on Edward Kelsey Moore’s book that carries the same name, and the extravagant comedies don’t exactly wrap up like the states, again, this isn’t about them, and they go over these characters credible highs and lows. There are tonal changes in the film. While the cinematic version released in the 1990’s depicts ladies and gents stalemated with tough times, and in principle, able to conquer anything that is thrown onto them through sheer love, the comical shifts in tone appear witty and captivating. In that regard, for a while at least, Mabry’s film fits that mold classically.

The sequence of the story is not linear and begins with a volcano-tired Odette Henry (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) who is sitting under a tree. She references the time when her mother became pregnant but had reservations regarding baby Odette. Mother went to the witch who told her to rest on top of the sycamore tree, so she did. Baby Odette was born there. Ever since then, she has been unafraid.

Through her eyes, we leap to 1968: Odette (she’s played by Kyanna Simone at her younger age) wishes to be a nurse while her best friend, the gifted pianist, clarice seems to be in pursuit of recording career. In the meantime, the two girls befriend Barbara Jean, whom they rescue from her abusive stepfather after her alcoholic mother’s death, and find her a nice place with Earl and his wife in their family’s diner.

It’s in these early scenes where the film finally manages to establish a rhythm and sails through the bond that these distinctive individuals share even if it is hard to believe that many refer to them as ‘The Supremes’. Nevertheless, from the time they are entering after starting their families and when the film heads towards the later years, such turmoil grows so extensive that it’s hard to say at what point did this picture, which started off rather well, turned into such a mess.

While they do have some flash for the late decades of the twentieth century, the opening scenes chronologically, predictably the last ones are more dramatic. There’s a riot of colors, costumes that are flashy, predominantly ranging from yellow to orange, and the length is laid out to black as well. And there’s a touch of hotness too. For example, Barbara Jean is captivated by a woman patient of Earl’s who becomes a pizzaiolo in New York.

Chick’s brother can be described as a mad, violent racist, but the love story shared between Chick and Barbara Jean is more interesting to the audience, although the film unsuccessfully keeps these details under wraps.

The film ends up attempting too much, rather than simply recounting the stories surrounding an extraordinary friendship. Today we witness the events when all those women are in a rehabilitation center dealing with unresolved feelings. The father of this family and the main spearhead of their superstitions is dead, which leaves his stronger widow (Donna Biscoe) and balanced son to rule. Barbara Jean (Sanaa Lathan) sleeps this whole time as if in a drunken stupor because she recently lost her husband Russell (Vondie Curtis-Hall). Clarice (Uzo Aduba) put her plans of becoming a pianist in the past, and the dreams of sweet nothings whispering sweet nothings in her ear now seem unrealistic; her husband Richmond (Russell Hornsby) lately appears to be quite sulky. The plot twist is that Odette is in a loving and beautiful marriage with her husband James (Mekhi Phifer). However, there is a problem. Out of nowhere, she’s diagnosed with non-Hodkin lymphoma. That barely gives the audience a hint of warmth since there’s so much variety of themes in this unpredictable plot.

To the last thirty minutes of the film, the plot just keyboards off the table, the twists include marriages, the deaths of characters, divorces, and murders, all these events coupled with the elegance of drama and a sense of dark humor.

Actually, I still have no idea what I was watching. I am not sure at this point if any of the cast can be sure of anything. There are many opportunities available for such a devoted cast, and yet their characters – in a movie that seeks to succeed within the parameters of a soap opera make the craziest unreasonable ¬decisions there are. Although great talents like Ellis-Taylor, who has been on a hot streak as of late, manage to keep it together for the most part, there have to be some leveling scenes on her outstanding capabilities. Lathan is no better since even her character’s wildest moments remain wild simply because they’re so strange.

Warmed by the performances and alongside the gorgeous period details, there’s something about “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat.” Including the fact that this is a film whose narrative construction makes the viewer feel blown away. There is a beautiful story here about Black women with big dreams faced with the world’s most brutal truths, which are somehow buried underneath this convoluted, complex piece of art that is self-exhausting. But there is no sense that ODM is the right work by which to redeem any good this project has since the space it desired to occupy and its aspirations felt irrelevant.

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