I want to be clear to start this off: The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat is NOT about the singing group. Perhaps if it was, I might have enjoyed it a bit more than I did, but alas it does nothing to separate itself from the pack of the number of films just like it.
Based on the novel by Edward Kelsey Moore and developed for the screen by the great Gina Prince-Bythewood director Tina Mabry, this story focuses on three best friends in Odette (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), Clarice (Uzo Aduba), and Barbara Jean (Sanaa Lathan), who meet when they are teenagers and stick together no matter what through the years. From bad boyfriends to family loss and so much more, they have their trials as much as they have their triumphs and through it all find a way to handle what their lives throw at them in the only way they know how… together.
This cast also includes Julian McMahon, Mekhi Phifer, Vondie Curtis-Hall, which on its own should be the selling point to get people to the theater for this film. However, by the time the lights go down and the feature gets up and running, it was a letdown. This story does WAY too much time jumping and does so in a way that had me wondering if I had missed certain details about their lives; by the end, it turned out that I had not missed anything but was expected to put a pin in certain things that would be explained later. And when that explanation came, there was no light-bulb-turning-on moment as much as it was more like “oh, OK”. I’m not ruling out that this would have been a better film if it were told in more of a linear manner, but I can’t guarantee that. In the final analysis, this is a script that really sticks to a basic “we grew up together and will be together forever through it all” formula that uses “curve balls” that don’t seem to do anything but try to add shock value that doesn’t work either.
It really bums me out that I did not enjoy The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat because I wanted this to be what could have been a sleeper hit for the summer of 2024. Instead, this is a film that will sit in the area that lies between the summer season and the awards push that we all know are coming in a few weeks. I wouldn’t say to avoid this one altogether, but don’t go out of your way to get to it either.
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