Review of Eve's Bayou

I had never heard of this film when my wife ordered it from NetFlix, and I keep wondering why. This is a terrific flick. Jurnee Smollett as Eve is truly excellent, and not just "good for a kid," or "good but annoyingly precocious," she is just plain good. The story is wonderful, and I love the fact that the race of the characters is hardly mentioned. It's a story about people, and it doesn't matter on what continent their ancestors originated. The cast is uniformly excellent, especially Samuel Jackson (one of the film industry's most versatile actors), and Debbi Morgan. Small parts portrayed by Branford Marsalis and Vondie Curtis Hall are very nicely done, and add color to the background of friends and relatives of the Batiste family. I enjoy the way the film shows us the world of psychic perception and Voodoo, and the degree to which belief in them can affect behavior. The location filming is wonderfully evocative of the steaming south, and the direction spot-on. I recommend this film.