Entertainment

Film Review: ‘Lila & Eve’

Published

11 years ago

July 16, 2015

Oakland Post

Viola Davis and Jennifer Lopez in Lila & Eve (Courtesy Photo)

By Dwight Brown
NNPA Film Critic

“When our child is killed we feel guilt. We feel like failures,” says the leader of a women’s group devoted to mothers whose children have been murdered. “Get to acceptance, so you can get on with life.” Those words of comfort and guidance are lost on Lila (Oscar-nominee Viola Davis) in this oddly affecting, but always engaging drama/crime/thriller that is themed around a topical subject but takes viewers in an unpredictable direction.

This project started with actress/producer Viola Davis and screenwriter Pat Gilfillan, who spent two years interviewing mothers of murdered children to prep for the script. Davis and co-star Jennifer Lopez worked together originally on the film Out of Sight back in 1998. Director Charles Stone III made an auspicious film debut with the popular film Drumline. They are the A-team that pulled this very female appealing film together along with funding from Lifetime Networks. What’s on view is a low-budget film that fluctuates between a cable movie and an indie art film. Consistently, it is the latter element that saves the movie, along with Ms. Davis, who is up to the challenge of carrying 94 minutes of mama drama on her shoulders.

Told in flashbacks that don’t really ruffle the story’s inner clock, Lila (Davis), a single mom and public-records worker lives with her 18-year-old son, Stephon (Aml Ameen, Beyond the Lights), and her younger son, Justin (Ron Caldwell). They are a close-knit family. Lila is loving, and her sons feed off her attempts to talk in their young hip lexicon while still being a taskmaster mom. There is no preparation for the night Stephon is gunned down on a street corner. Shot dead in a drive-by killing meant for someone else. Lila grieves. She seeks support at the “Mothers of Young Angels” support-group meetings.

At one of the sessions, she meets Eve Rafael (Lopez), who lost her daughter to a crime. Eve becomes Lila’s sponsor and the two strike up a friendship. Both are hurt. Both are angry. Neither has seen the police department or the justice system find the killers of their children, and Eve is extremely pessimistic about the police’s efforts: “They don’t think about us. Hell, they don’t even see us.” From a thought, to action, to involvement in their own investigation, the two ladies, with a revolver in tow and not much of a conscience, seek out leads, take names, confront suspects and let the bodies fall where they may.

If this film had stuck to a Lifetime Original series tone, what follows would be laughable. Instead, thanks to Patrick Gilfillan’s unpredictable script, Charles Stone III’s spot on direction, Wyatt Garfield’s (Beasts of the Southern Wild) moody cinematography and Robert K. Lambert’s (Three Kings) well-paced editing, what unfolds is an engaging, twisted, and shockingly understated, slightly dreamy revenge movie lead by two feminine women who have the balls of a stevedore.

Jenny from the Block wears too much makeup for a movie like this, but she is passable as the temptress Eve, who leads Lila down a bloody path of murder. Shea Whigham (The Wolf of Wall Street) as the investigating Detective Hollister, who is by-the-book and consequently inept, is the one who can unravel the mystery of the street hoods who are being popped like stuff pigeons in a shooting gallery. Andre Royo (The Wire), his partner, is an articulate and politically ambitious cop who wants to take the case in another direction. Julius Tennon portrays Ben, the guy down the street who tries to mend Lila’s broken heart; he’s also Davis’ husband. There is a long list of supporting actors who play gang members; all are good, none stand out. They do their job. They act tough and take a bullet.

The strange script and steady direction would be nothing without an actress of Davis’ caliber. She is raw. Her emotions run the gamut. You believe Lila loves her children, is capable of being duplicitous to inquiring cops and able to stand up to a thug, in imperfect and sometimes implausible ways (e.g. The film’s climax).

There are times when the proceedings have the feel and methodical pacing of a foreign indie film. This almost intangible quality rarely wavers. You will stick with this film and its main characters even if you have to suspend your disbelief every now and then. After a revelation towards the end that puts the proceedings in a different light, your patience will be rewarded. The footage rolls to an ending that is satisfying and makes the time it takes to watch this crime thriller evolve worth the effort. Lila & Eve will someday be a great cable movie. For right now it is a compelling indie film.

Visit NNPA Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

3 days ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

Prescott Circus Theatre Presents Free Summer Performance Series

Now in its 41st year, the Prescott Circus Theatre is a nationally recognized performing arts education program for Oakland youth. The circus offers safe environments that challenge Oakland youth, through circus arts training, to develop the skills and confidence to thrive on stage, in school, and in life.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Prescott Circus showcase pathways pyramid. Photo courtesy of Prescott Circus.

By Post Staff

The Prescott Circus, Oakland’s longest-running youth circus, is returning this summer with its free shows. Join the Prescott Circus’s young stars as they share their joys and talents through stilt-dancing, tumbling, juggling, and more.

At the heart of this one-hour show, which demonstrates teamwork, pride, and joy, are Oakland Unified School District students ages 8 – 17 from more than 10 different schools

This is accomplished through no-cost school and community programs for more than 300 Oakland youth each year. Performing company members from Prescott, where the program began, perform and make appearances at as many as 40 Bay Area events each year.

The summer program is funded in part by Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, California Arts Council, Port of Oakland, and the West Davis & Bergard Foundation.

Performances will be held Tuesday, July 14, 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (ASL interpreted) and Wednesday, July 15, 11 a.m., at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. For free reservations go to

https://PrescottCircusSummerShows.eventbrite.com

For group reservations for camps, childcare centers, senior centers, go to www.prescottcircus.org

A community show will be held Saturday, July 18, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., at DeFremery Park,1651 Adeline St., Oakland.

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50 Years Later, ‘Wake Up Everybody!’ Still Resonates During Black Music

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

iStockphoto.

By Hazel Trice Edney, Special to The Post

Hazel Trice Edney

“Wake up, everybody, No more sleepin’ in bed

No more backward thinkin’. Time for thinkin’ ahead

The world has changed so very much from what it used to be.

There is so much hatred, war, and poverty.

“The world won’t get no better If we just let it be.

Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw.

The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah– just you and me.”

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

In a rare, nearly somber moment, the group’s celebrated lead singer, Teddy Pendergrass, introduced the song on Soul Train, the weekly dance and live performance TV show that aired roughly between 1971 and 2006. Pendergrass told the attentive live audience and thousands watching by television that Wake Up Everybody, the title tune of their most recent album, was intended to inspire people to take action with a goal to change America for the better.

“I’m sure that you will all agree that there are things that need to be done in this country today,” he said. “So, what I’d like for you to do is listen very carefully to see what you can do to lend a hand.”

The song’s appeal worked.

“I played that song over and over and over again because it was a constant warning to keep ourselves prepared for the society that we were living in,” says A. Peter Bailey, then a 37-year-old former aide to Malcolm X.

When “Wake Up Everybody” hit the airwaves, Bailey was working as an associate editor of Ebony Magazine. “It was a call to be aware of what we were dealing with in the country that we lived in, the world we lived in, the neighborhood we lived in, the cities that we lived in,” Bailey said in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire.

He concluded that during Black Music Month 2026, such songs should be recalled and celebrated as a key to changes for the good across America; especially because such songs successfully encouraged people to deal with the issues that might otherwise denigrate the promises of America, including the promise that “All men are created equal,”as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

“The rhythms and blues expressed our joys, our sorrows and our fears,” Bailey recalls. “It was those songs and the singing of those songs by our people that attracted us to the campaigns for justice.”

With his life inspired by that song and others, Bailey, now 88, went on to establish and teach a Black Press class at Virginia Commonwealth University. Also, he has since written three books, including a memoir, “Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher,” in which he expounded upon successful principles of social justice, some of which are reflected in “Wake Up Everybody.”

Long before the term “woke” became associated with campaigns for justice, Pendergrass led the song that reverberated across America and still holds deep meaning.

The ‘wake up’ call exhorts teachers to ‘teach a new way,’ doctors to heal elders, and builders to ‘build a new land… we can do it if we all lend a hand.”

The song concludes:

“The world won’t get no better if we just let it be. Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw. The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah – just you and me.”

Hazel Trice Edney wrote this story as part of a four-part series powered by AARP in commemoration of Black Music Month, June 2026.