Alfre Woodard, with her sparkling fencing match of emotions, is good to see in a role of almost any size, and better to see in a bigger one. For a change, she has the lead, a substance-abusing Chicago single mom who glues herself and her family back together in the course of a Southern sojourn at her uncle's chicken restaurant. Her first attempts at sausage-making and at public speaking would by themselves have been enough to appease. Most of the time, she looks as if she were waiting for this toddling movie to catch up with her. It's the directorial debut of the poet Maya Angelou, down a path of soft-sell evangelism. Not even Alzheimer's and autism under the same roof, not even flashbacks to the days of slavery, can cloud the mood. With Al Freeman, Jr., Esther Rolle, Mary Alice, Loretta Devine, and Wesley Snipes. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
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