Review of Soul Food (1997) by Melissa T — 15 Sep 2007

Mother Joe as she would be referred too. I think eveyone knows someone like Mother Joe or has a Mother Joe of their own family. That's what makes this 1997 movie such a hit in the African-American culutre, so many people could relate to this movie in more ways than one.

Mother Joe played by Irma P. Hall was the back bone of the whole movie, even though her character only appeared in the movie for a short time. Mother Joe had three daughters who all had the share of problems.

Sunday dinner was tradition in the family and everyone pitched in to make it a family event. Food is the one thing that seems to bring families together and this family was no different. Mother Joe one Sunday burned herself and that it seems it was the begining to the end.

The film does a good job of leading to the climax with Mother Joe burining her self and then her diabetes placing her in a coma. Mother Joe died soon after that and all hell broke out.

She had three daughters played by Vanessa Williams, Vivca Fox, and Nia Long. The movie actually starts with the last daughter Nia Long getting married and Mother Joe stepping in and dancing with her husband who is dancing a little to freely with an exgirlfriend.

The story is being told by the apple of Mother Joe's eye her grandson Ahmad. Ahmad tells how Mother Joe always tries to keep peace in the family.

After Mother Joe death Nia Long and her huband stayed at the house, while her other sisters lived in their own houses with their families. Nia Long husband had some problems with the law from time to time and had a hard time keeping a job. Ahmad's mom who is played by Vivca Fox has just had her third child and her husband is the only one who works in the household. The next sister played by the talented Vannessa Williams was a big shot lawyer and her husband was also a full time lawyer and part time musician. They had the money in the house but not the love.

This film goes through everyone's problems in a way that just about anyone's family can relate too in some form or another. In the end it is the food and what they knew Mother Joe would have wanted that brings them back together. Mother Joe just wanted them to stay a family through the good times and the bad times and Ahmad honored that and put together a Sunday dinner to bring his family back together. That Sunday they stumbled on a pile of money Mother Joe had stored in a TV.

This film touched my life because the closeness Ahmad and his grandmother shared was the same I shared with my grandmother and at the time the movie came out my grandmother was in her last stages of Alzheimers. I watched the movie again after she passed and really did see how our family was going through the same thing they did when Mother Joe died. We had all become distant from each other but we too had to find a way to bring all back together and be a family again. We knew that the Mother Joe of our family would have wanted it that way.