Director - Gina Prince-Bythewood
Genre - Drama
What an embarrassing Hallmark-y picture this turned out to be. Every fiber of the direction is designed to pull violently at your heartstrings, urging you like an annoying credit card salesman to let its teardrops-inducing devices overcome you. Adapted from a novel which was endorsed with fervor by Oprah (the movie received ample cheer-leading from her as well), it stars Dakota Fanning who runs away from home with slave (Jennifer Hudson) in tow and as consequence to that, find solace as well as lessons on life in the arms of a black family. Queen Latifah plays the matriarch figure and Alicia Keys one of her sisters. Keys seemed to have been brushed on with a darker (and uneven, gasp!) tone of body paint to make her appear more of a black woman, which is really odd and ridiculous. The only person here who managed to rise above the material is Paul Bettany, playing Fanning's volatile dad with marked believability in a movie filled with alarming stereotypes.
2 STARS!
All about The Secret Life of Bees
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