A Raisin in the Sun
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Movie Reviews of A Raisin in the Sun
Movie Review: a great movie
Summary: 4 Stars
As an African American female college student in her early 20s, I am able to identify with Beneatha. In those days, it was very hard for both women AND African Americans to even go to college. Can you imagine how much harder it was to get into medical school? The only bad part of the movie is when Beneatha's monologue from the play was eliminated from the movie!( I played Beneatha in a project for my acting class in high school).
Movie Review: Subject matter still an issue today
Summary: 5 Stars
The title of this film is taken from a line from a Langston Hughes poem called "A Dream Deferred":
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun
Or fester like a sore-
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
"A Raisin In The Sun", an award-winning Broadway stage play brought to the screen, is a story about dreams. Everyone in this film has them, but the question is, do they ever come true? Do you have to put that dream on hold because of other circumstances beyond your control, until it consumes you to do something unthinkable? Or in order to reach that dream you want to come true so badly, you decide to take another route to get it? Or you just let it die, and you are forever regretting not taking the necessary steps to make that dreams a reality?
I first saw this on television umpteen years ago and in school, and I was touched by the whole plot. In the 1950s, an African-American family living in a Chicago tenement obtains a large amount of money from an insurance policy due to the death of the patriarch, and his widow (Claudia McNeil) decides to use a large portion of it as a down payment on a home in the suburbs, which is a thrill to everyone in the family, except her petulant son Walter Lee (Sidney Poitier). Walter Lee has dreams of his own, and wants the insurance money for another purpose.
Walter Lee's headstrong, witty and socially conscious younger sister, Beneatha (Diana Sands), is a college student who has dreams of going to medical school and becoming a doctor and in the meanwhile, trying desperately to identify with her African roots after meeting a Nigerian exchange student (Ivan Dixon). This is a major ingredient in the script, being that this was written shortly after the birth of the Civil Rights Movement, several years before the Black Panthers were formed and at least 15 years before the women's liberation movement. Will she ever get there? Meanwhile, Walter Lee and his mother continuously clash until his mother finally breaks down and gives him a portion of the money, but she is very careful about how she wants him to use it.
Meanwhile, the residents of the white suburban neighborhood where this family wants to move don't want them there. Later on, a decision must be made. Should they move to this beautiful new home where they aren't really wanted, or take the white neighbors up on their offer to buy the house back from them with a profit?
The entire cast, which is the original Broadway ensemble, is stellar, especially Claudia McNeil's amazing portrayal of the widowed Lena Younger, Walter Lee's mother. She is nothing short of phenomenal - she is a proud woman, a tower of strength in the face of tragedy and although she herself is suffering, she is able to put her own grief aside to comfort the other family members. This is clearly Sidney Poitier's finest role, right up there with playing Virgil Tibbs in 1967's "In The Heat of the Night". Exploding with intensity, he accurately nails down the frustrations and pain of a black man who wants for much more for himself and his family, and pins his hopes on an unyielding dream. Ruby Dee plays Ruth, Walter Lee's wife, a beautiful woman of quiet dignity who is struggling with conflicts of her own. Also appearing in his first movie role is future Oscar winner Louis Gossett, Jr. as George Murchison, an articulate and well-to-do college student.
This is still a relevant topic today, even though this film was made over 40 years ago because these things are still happening. Lorraine Hansberry, the playwright, was inspired to write this masterpiece by her own experience of moving to an all-white Chicago suburb as a child, and the very public genrification story of entertainer Nat King Cole, who faced the same kind of bigotry when he brought a house in a wealthy white neighborhood in California in 1948.
Wonderful family film. Highly recommended.
Movie Review: Excellent family value guideline
Summary: 5 Stars
It's old no doubt about that, howerver if you compaire the modern "dazzling" special effect, fast paste.... films of today that always try to catch you at the end... most of them are very disapointing. One thing about old time movies... is the general flow... and this one got it.... it kept your interest all the way to the end. It is a family orientation movie and it message is very important, because in our modern time most of us had lost it! So for that reason, when I read the above critics I ran to the store and bought two Sidney poirier films, the other one is Butch and the Preacher (didn't see it yet).If anyone doesn't understand the meening of good family's values, this is an excellent guideline!Movie Review: Every human being needs to see this movie
Summary: 5 Stars
this movie is one of the best I've seen that dealt with human basic humanity. The world would be a better place if everybody saw the movie. We all lose our priority in term of what is truely important in our lives. It's our family, neighbors, friends, etc., not money or material things. Please see it.Movie Review: A STRONG BLACK FAMILY
Summary: 5 Stars
Sidney Poitier&Crew Give a Classic Performance here.Despite all the hardships being faced Sidney&His Family are Together as one.that's the magic of this Film.Very Essential&Touching.Very Powerful.