Soul Food

Humor, sentiment and melodrama strike a balance as he brings to life nine major characters and a host of others as well.

George Tillman says Soul Food is based in part on his own family, and I believe him, because he seems to know the characters so well; by the film's end, so do we.

This new menu movie has a soapy plot, appealing stars, family values, down-home atmosphere and a conviction that there's rarely a problem fried chicken can't cure.

But it's also old-fashioned family drama that invites audience participation ("Don't you go making eyes at your cousin's husband, you little slut!"), and is surprisingly satisfying, in a gooey kind of way -- like macaroni and cheese or peach cobbler, perhaps.

Soul Food stays a cut above the average melodrama by keeping the characters grounded and the situations from becoming too ripe.

Echoes of "Waiting To Exhale" are obvious, but this is a more smiley affair altogether, with perhaps a spoonful too much sugar stirred in at times, and emotional development often mixed from the most basic of recipes.

It could be a distillation of some unaired black soap opera, so predictable are the plot contrivances--adultery, pregnancy, illness, missing money--and so cartoonishly are the characters drawn.