Ensemble Performances Make `Eve's Bayou' Rich

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XXX 1/2 "Eve's Bayou," with Jurnee Smollett, Meagan Good, Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, Jake Smollett, Vondie Curtis Hall, Diahann Carroll. Directed and written by Kasi Lemmons. Alderwood, Everett 9, Harvard Exit, Kirkland Parkplace, Lewis & Clark, Renton Village, SeaTac North. 109 minutes. `R" - Restricted because of sexuality and language. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Firmly anchored by confident movie-star performances by Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield and Diahann Carroll, this vivid portrait of an early-1960s African-American family is one of the most impressive ensemble pieces of the season.

It's the debut effort of writer-director Kasi Lemmons, an actress who shows she's also a storyteller with a gift for juggling several punchy stories. Like "Boogie Nights" young writer-director, Paul Thomas Anderson, she seems to have come out of nowhere to create a multileveled family saga rich with characters whose self-deceptions lead to some explosively funny moments.

"Your father works hard so we can have a house with four bathrooms," explains a wife and mother who's trying to ignore her husband's philandering. A moment of truth between two women ends with an evasive tactic that couldn't be more off-the-wall: "Let's eat pomegranates until our hands are red."

There's a dark side to "Eve's Bayou," and Lemmons lets you know that right away. The opening narration makes it clear that the philandering father, Louis Batiste (Jackson), is dead, and that his daughter, Eve (the talented Jurnee Smollett), who was 10 when he died, feels responsible for his early demise.

"Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain," says the grown-up Eve, who acts as narrator. The movie is ultimately about the shaping of memory: the intricate manner in which some incontrovertible facts are avoided or denied, others are blown out of proportion, and others become impossibly subjective.

Raised in a Louisiana town that's too small for casual adultery to go unnoticed, Eve is an unwilling witness to her doctor-father's steamy relationship with a married woman (Lisa Nicole Carson). She guiltily shares this knowledge with her older sister, Cisely (Meagan Good), who pretends not to believe her. Their mother (Whitfield) seems clueless, Louis assures Eve that the family is secure, and Eve ends up going to a voodoo practitioner (Carroll) to get her bearings.

Another superstitious character, Eve's thrice-widowed aunt, Mozelle (Debbi Morgan), plays an important role here. Flamboyant and funny, she's a psychic who seems to be able to predict the future; she's convinced that any man who becomes involved with her is cursed. Vondie Curtis Hall (Lemmons' husband) plays her new lover, who defies the past by taking up with her.

Although "Eve's Bayou" is set in the South nearly four decades ago, the struggle for civil rights plays no part in the story. Lemmons concentrates instead on one seemingly well-off family's internal problems, and especially the reactions of its women to a charismatic male whose wandering eye threatens to destroy all that they hold dear.

They're essentially helpless as long as they're tied to this man, yet his elimination is not treated with a sense of triumph or even relief. Lemmons never underestimates his appeal as doctor, father, husband or extramarital adventurer. The movie leaves us feeling as ambivalent as Eve.