Un raisin au soleil

Sidney Poitier's A Raisin in the Sun exceeded my high hopes. Easily a 10/10 film, it is so very touching and uplifting with great characters and great performances. Humorous, too! This film delivers in a major way.

Ideally, a film should have something intelligent to say about life, about reality. A Raisin in the Sun is such a film and more. So, if the reality of human life in general interests you, consider yourself well-advised to watch this powerful film. I have little doubt that you will enjoy it.

It is, as of this posting, number 34 on my top 250.

When you rent A Raisin in the Sun, get ready for some seriously intense acting and a beautiful script. Usually, when a film is made of a play, one or two members of the Broadway cast are used, and the rest is filled with Hollywood names. In Daniel Petrie's adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's play, almost everyone in the 1959 original Broadway cast reprised their roles on film. And, while Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil, as well as the direction and play itself, were nominated for Tonys, the film was universally ignored at the Oscars.

In a small apartment that doesn't even have a bathroom, there lives the widowed Claudia McNeil, her son Sidney Poitier, her daughter Diana Sands, and Sidney's wife Ruby Dee. They're all dissatisfied with their lives, but each family member deals with their disappointment and frustration in different ways. Sidney throws his heart into untrustworthy schemes, Diana is studying to become a doctor to better herself, Ruby keeps her head down as she tries to get through each day, and Claudia tries to continue mothering her grown children.

Unlike most plays, A Raisin in the Sun isn't overly wordy, and not a single moment is boring. It's terribly sad, but still a bit optimistic at times, and very thought-provoking. Perhaps my favorite element, besides the superbly heart-wrenching performances of Sidney and Claudia, is the character development in the script. Every single person in the story is three-dimensional, and no one is a villain or a saint. Audiences can understand their thought-processes and motivations, and it's nearly impossible to choose a favorite character. Depending on how well you handle sad stories, this might be a staple you add to your collection, or it might be a film you watch only once but remember forever.

I watch this film with my children, to show them that although there are no special effects, no explicit sex scences, and very little profane language this is a movie that GRABS you from beginning to end. It breaks beyond race and color, it is about HUMANITY. Sidney and Ruby are BRILLIANT in this film, but the accolades belong to the grandmother. She is the ROCK that holds everything together. I urge everyone to watch this movie. EVERYTIME I WATCH IT I CRY.

Diary entry 1996:

For decades I have been waiting for American TV to see fit to exhibit the movie version of "A Raisin in the Sun". The day will never come. So I grabbed the opportunity to check out the video from the library. I didn't expect to be moved as much as I was when I first saw the TV play. After all, I knew the plot. The novelty effect was no longer there. Yet I was tearful throughout the movie, and was wiping away tears for the last half hour. There are wonderful lines like "Seems God saw fit to give the black man nothing but dreams - but He sure saw fit to give'em children to make the dream seem worthwhile". "A raisin in the Sun" is not only the greatest movie drama, but also the greatest American play. This play transcends race and addresses universal issues. It combines drama with humor with admirable balance.

This is the embodiment of the Mr. Langston Hughes poem that obviously inspired Ms. Lorraine Hansberry to write this wonderful piece. What indeed DOES happen to a dream deferred? Each of the adult main characters has a dream about what should be done with the $10,000 insurance policy paid after the Younger patriarch's death, and each person's dream is challenged. I most identify with the character of Beneatha, the doctor-to-be in a time when few women, and even fewer Black women, could achieve this dream. This is a story of dreams, of family, of strength, of sacrifice, of mistakes and of recovery from the consequences of those mistakes. Whenever I need a dose of inspiration, when things in my own life seem too difficult to conquer, I watch A Raisin in the Sun and feel strong again. The acting in this film is so incredibly moving that there are parts (and I won't give them away) that are so disheartening and sad that they still move me to tears, after all these years and after all the times I have watched it. It is truly the greatest story ever told.