IIn The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, three best friends stick together throughout their lives, lifting each other up as they’re dealt one heavy hand after another. The women – played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Uzo Aduba and Sanaa Lathan in their later years – keep their heads up despite shattered dreams, manipulative romances, domestic violence, addiction, brutal hate crimes, the devastating loss of a child and a cancer diagnosis. There’s a lot of trauma to process. But that’s not really the goal of The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat.
The film, based on Edward Kelsey Moore’s best-selling novel and directed by Tina Mabry, remains intentionally lighthearted and carefree. Hollywood tends to tell black stories only when they can focus on misfortune. This dramedy, on the other hand, opts for joy and laughter; even if that lightness can seem forced given the circumstances of the storytelling. It’s an admirable attempt to fill a vacuum, but we can sense the strain and striving for a mission statement over any emotional truth.
At this point, you’ve probably noticed that Ellis-Taylor, Aduba, and Lathan aren’t playing the R&B group known for their blaring song Stop! In The Name Of Love. Their characters Odette, Clarice, and Barbara Jean are simply called “The Supremes” due to a passing resemblance to the singers fronted by Diana Ross.
The man who christens them so is Big Earl, the warm and generous owner of Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, a diner where the community meets for drinks and dancing, and we don’t actually see anyone eating. The so-called Supremes, who claim the same table at Earl’s from 1967 to 1999 as they process their love, losses and regrets, never have more than a soda or an unopened bottle of ketchup in front of them. The title is a bit clickbait if you ask me. I was expecting a musical where funk is served with fries, and instead got a fleeting, time-jumping drama that ends in death.
We are introduced to the younger Odette, Clarice and Barbara Jean (played in their youth by Kyanna Simone, Abigail Achiri and Tati Gabrielle), who forge their friendship with an act of female solidarity. Barbara Jean has lost her abusive mother. Odette, the feisty one known for “kicking ass and stealing souls”, senses that Barbara Jean is in an unsafe situation. The latter’s alcoholic stepfather makes this quite obvious. So Odette and Clarice immediately step in as her protectors. Odette goes so far as to comically strip off her Sunday best and threaten to punch the stepfather in her underwear should he fight back. He doesn’t. And the girls eventually find a new home for Barbara Jean with Big Earl.
The devout restaurant owner also takes in a young white boy named Ray (Ryan Paynter), who is fleeing his racist older brother’s violent household. Barbara Jean takes an immediate liking to Ray, sensing a kindred spirit across the racial divide. Their version of meet-cute is comparing battle scars in the stockroom at Earl’s. These are just the first examples of how Mabry’s film, which she co-wrote with Gina Prince-Bythewood (under the pseudonym Cee Marcellus), awkwardly tries to wring some comfort and humor (not to mention romance) from serious scenarios.
At midlife, we see Odette, Clarice and Barbara Jean dealing with Big Earl’s death. Their benefactor died while kneeling at his bedside, praying as if he had called upon a higher power to take his life. His stiff corpse, with bowed head and folded hands, remains in that position all night because his extremely silly, attention-seeking widow (Donna Biscoe), who turns his funeral into a slapstick farce, did not want to disturb their rest.
This is all reasonably likable stuff. But the comedy is rather broad throughout, the drama unconvincing and the film never finds its natural tone, although the great ensemble cast, led by Origin’s Ellis-Taylor, does a lot of work to make it watchable.
But there’s a certain restlessness here. The narrative has a strange way of cherry-picking and rushing the more serious moments, leaving the characters (and us) very little room to really wallow in their emotions. This shortcut is particularly jarring when we’re suddenly confronted with seemingly crucial details. For example, we don’t learn that one of the main characters has started a family until it’s briefly mentioned in passing, and then we meet someone else’s child… when it dies!
It’s a jumpy narrative, like a collection of disconnected skits and monologues, The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat hints at the movie that never quite come to fruition. Let’s just hope we get to see this movie someday.
