Soul Food

Soul Food is a 1997 American comedy-drama film written and directed by George Tillman Jr. in his major studio debut. 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. The story centers on the trials of an extended Black-American 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 African-Americans than is typically seen in Hollywood films. In 2000, Showtime premiered a one-hour television series based upon the film. In 2015, it was announced that 20th Century Fox is planning a sequel for film called More Soul Food, written by Tillman. Plot Soul Food, told through the eyes of 11-year-old Ahmad, follows the trials of the Joseph family, a close-knit Chicago family that gets together to have Sunday dinner every week, with plenty of soul food to go around. Mother (Big Mama) Joe has three daughters, who each have had varying success in life: oldest daughter Teri has become a successful lawyer, but has a strained relationship with younger sister Maxine, Ahmad's mother, who stole and eventually married Teri's former boyfriend, Kenny. Teri is currently married to Miles, a lawyer who quits his job to pursue his dream of being an R&B musician, which Teri doesn't support. Youngest daughter Robin —nicknamed "Bird"—has just opened a barbershop/beauty parlor, and married Lem, an ex-convict. 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 in the interim. Teri takes in her troubled cousin Faith, who bonds with Miles over a love of the arts. The two have an affair and are caught having sex by Teri, which later leads to a near-violent confrontation at Kenny and Maxine's anniversary party when she furiously comes after the two with a 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 to get Lem a job.