Soul Food Review

For generations, a Sunday dinner of tasty soul food has been a tradition in Big Mama`s home in suburban Chicago. Sunday dinner is when the family can get together - all except Uncle Pete who lives in seclusion in an upstairs room. The family centres on Big Mama`s three daughters. Teri, Vanessa L. Williams, is a yuppie lawyer who disapproves of the fact that her husband prefers the music business to the legal profession. Maxine, Vivica A. Cox, is a happily married mother with three children, including the very alert Ahmad, Brandon Hammond, the story`s young narrator. And Bird, Nia Long, the youngest, is a hairdresser just married to an ex-con and not quite finished with a previous lover. The force keeping the family together is Mama, Irma P. Hall, and when she`s taken ill, things begin to fall apart.... Talk about traditional family values - Soul Food is an Andy Hardy movie for the 90s. The family that prays together stays together is the moral of the tale, and though at times it`s raunchy enough to earn an MA rating, it`s a cosy, cloying, unadventurous and sentimental tale. The pacing is sluggish but there is some compensation in a few lively performances. As for that soul food, it looked a bit indigestible to me...