Soul Food (film)

Soul Food is a 1997 American comedydrama film, produced by Kenneth Babyface Edmonds, Tracey Edmonds, and Robert Teitel, and released by Fox 2000 Pictures. Featuring an ensemble cast, the film stars Vanessa Williams, Vivica A. Fox, Nia Long, Michael Beach, Mekhi Phifer, Jeffrey D. Sams, Irma P. Hall, Gina Ravera, and Brandon Hammond. Written and directed by George Tillman, Jr. in his major studio debut, the film centers on the trials of an extended AfricanAmerican family, held together by longstanding family traditions which begin to fade as serious problems take center stage. Tillman based the family in the film on his own, and Soul Food was widely acclaimed for presenting a more positive image of AfricanAmericans than is typically seen in Hollywood films.

Soul Food is told through the eyes of 11yearold Ahmad Hammond, follows the trials of the Joseph family, a closeknit Chicago family that gets together to have Sunday dinner every week, with plenty of soul food to go around. Mother Big Mama Joe Hall has three daughters, who each have had varying success in life oldest daughter Teri Williams has become a successful lawyer, but has a strained relationship with younger sister Maxine Fox who stole and eventually married Teris former boyfriend, Kenny Sams. Teri is currently married to Miles Beach, a lawyer who quit his job to pursue his dream of being an RampB musician, which Teri doesnt support. Youngest daughter Ryla Longnicknamed Birdhas just opened a barbershopbeauty parlor, and is married to Lem Phifer, an exconvict.Life becomes complicated when Mother Joe, the diabetic but wise and caring matriarch of the family and the glue that holds it together, suffers a debilitating stroke during an operation to amputate her leg and slips into a coma, dying shortly after sharing a last word of advice with Ahmad when she awakens five weeks later. Without her guidance, the family begins to fall apart. Teri takes in her troubled cousin Faith Ravera, who bonds with Miles over a love of the arts. They two have an affair and are caught having sex by Teri, which later leads to a nearviolent confrontation at Kenny and Maxines anniversary party when she furiously comes after the two with a butcher knife. Meanwhile, Lem cannot find a job due to his criminal record, so Bird makes an uneasy deal with her former boyfriend Simuel St. James Mel Jackson to get Lem a job. This creates tension between Lem and Bird when he finds out, and in one of their arguments, Teri overhears and mistakenly believes Lem was physically threatening her sister. Teri hires her cousin Blimp to teach Lem a lesson, but when the two men fight, the police become involved, resulting in Lem being arrested on assault and unlawful weapon possession charges. Realizing her m

Source: Wikipedia