Maybe it was the bizarre photo of a smirking, card-holding Danny Glover that always gave me the wrong impression of this film. I'm not entirely sure what I expected it to be, but I'm relatively certain I wasn't expecting a quiet family drama.
Writer/director Charles Burnett doesn't reach hard for big statements. The film appears to take place in the 1950s-60s (I couldn't be sure), but the time period isn't chosen out of a desire to create a plot focused on race relations. In fact, the drama is entirely centered around a single small family, and a wild friend from way in the past (Harry, played by Danny Glover). Cinematographer Walt Lloyd creates a familiar environment, whether or not it happens to be personally familiar to the viewer. Everything feels warm and slightly worn, including personalities and ways of speaking.
Although my personal family history couldn't be more different than the family depicted in this film, the character of Samuel "Babe Brother" (Richard Brooks) really hit home for me. His attitude on life and relationship with his father mirrors my own all too closely. It's the honestly of character depiction and interaction that brings out so much truth from Charles Burnett's writing. Everything comes together to make a perfectly realized story of absolute truth. This may just be a great film.
