The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-eAT
Not gonna lie, this got me good in the first half. In its first hour, Tina Mabry’s theatre “The Supremes at Earl’s All You Can Eat” portrays about the decades old friendship of three black women in an overly emotional and joyous manner. Based on Edward Kelsey Moore’s same-titled novel, the comedy zigs despite its name, it’s not actually about the musical group and zags through the biographical ups and downs of these figures. In a way, its tonal shifts, light and airy, seems to be in tandem with the tone predominant in black films of the 1990s like ‘Soul Food’ and ‘The Best Man’, where the unbreakable bonds of characters allow them to rise above their deep rooted personal issues. And, up to a host, Mabry’s movie is absolutely welcome to join that canon.
The fragmented narration opens with Odette Henry (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) in a state of despair as she rests on a tree. She narrates her past when, during her mother’s pregnancy with Odette, the mother worried about the child and sought a witch who advised her to give birth on a sycamore tree. It was on that tree that Odette was delivered. She has been brave all her life from that point onwards.
Through her eyes, we skip to the year 1968 when Odette (younger Odette played by Kyanna Simone) desires to be a nurse and her best friend Clarice (Abigail Achiri), a gifted pianist, wishes to be a recording artist. In the aftermath of the youngsters’ abuse, Odette and her best friend, who now owns a diner with Earl (Tony Winters) and his wife, take Barbara Jean (Tati Gabrielle) in after her violent stepfather.
These early scenes are some of the best in the movie, creating a credible connection among these seemingly few individuals that makes the moniker that many refer to them with, “The Supremes,” appropriate. But it is after we jump to their adult and later ages that the speed at which the film begins to unravel is so rapid that one is hard pressed to determine when an enjoyable movie turned into such a chaos.
The set depicts the 1960s in the social scene, featuring those people still alive during those times in excellent detail. The costumes worn during the era were eye catching and quite out there with many leaning towards yellows and orange hues. There has been some romance as well. Barbara Jean, for example, develops feelings for the white busboy Chick Carlson (Ryan Paynter) who worked for Earl and was also a victim of domestic violence.
Chick’s brother is a pathetic racist who loves to be brutish and violent all while the butt of true love lies somewhere between Chick and Barbara Jean which the film, for some reasons, neglects allowing its to blossom.
Instead of placing an emphasis on a single story that focuses on an extraordinary bond experienced rarely, the narrative becomes too grand. As we bring the story to present time, the status is that all the ladies are grappling with pretty events. Their elder shakes head of family but is no more. He leaves behind a superstitious wife (speaking to the viewer but not referring to Earl’s widow) and a level-headed son. Barbara Jean (Sanaa Lathan) has become an alcoholic since she saw her current husband Lester (Vondie Curtis-Hall) die in front of her. Clarice (Uzo Aduba) hurt and failed in becoming a pianist, now it seems that her husband Richmond (Russell Hornsby) is start doing quite a number of infidelities. All of that wrapped up in these rapid caveats, Joshua does have a wholesome, vibrant, and sound marriage with James (Mekhi Phifer) but her whole world changes when she receives the bombshell that she has non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Perhaps that barely touches the tip of the iceberg of all the diversions that the plot created.
The last 30 minutes in the narrative is disjointed, it looks like moving on with the other story has fallen behind, erratic and redundant transitions, inclusive of divorce or murder or even a death that all comes across as sorrowful drama and pitched dark humor that cuts.
Well, I’m not sure I still know what I watched. I’m not sure any of the cast members know for that matter. No matter how hard they try, it is all in vain because their characters in a film that clearly wants to be this kind of soap opera make the most ridiculous choices imaginable. And while Ellis-Taylor, who is currently enjoying an amazing string of good luck, mostly manages to hold it together, even her skills cannot help some scenes from spiraling. So is Lathan who finds herself in a very similar situation when some of her character’s most amusing storyline arcs for some reason become mere footnotes.
Among the strikingly beautiful period costumes and sets and the gentleness of the actors’ portrayal of their characters, it is then quite tempting to want to embrace “The Supremes at Earl’s All You Can Eat.” But this is a film that in some way appears to be stubbornly in the business of pushing you further through its outrageously absurd story line. There is indeed an inspiring tale about Black women who aspire to be the best and are high on life only to be disappointed by the harsh real world, which lies somewhere in the middle of this unholy, dirty and problematic piece that chokes itself. But Mabry has good intentions do not redeem what on the face of it appears to be a rather banal piece of art in compare to its grand visions.
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