A Raisin in the Sun
June 2008 Reviewed by: Josh Barber Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

In 1959, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun became the first play produced on Broadway to be written by an African-American woman, and it received vast acclaim for its subject matter and the work of its cast, including Sydney Poitier. In 1961, it was turned into a film starring the same cast, and is considered a classic today. The play has been revived and re-imagined several times, including a 2004 production that was turned into this 2008 TV movie.

A Raisin in the Sun is the story of the Youngers, an African-American family living on Chicago's South Side, trying to find their own way into the typical white American dream. The family patriarch has recently died, and the family is due to receive an insurance settlement, but everyone has different ideas about how to spend the money.

The widowed Lena (Phylicia Rashad) wants to buy a home and move out of their tenement, reasoning that this would be best for the entire family. Her son Walter Jr. (Sean "Puffy" Combs) wants to invest in a liquor store, reasoning that it would be a source of income to support his wife Ruth (Audra McDonald) and young son Travis. Meanwhile Walter's sister Beneatha (Sanaa Lathan) is being enticed to move to Nigeria by her new boyfriend.

Often when plays are adapted to the screen, they end up feeling claustrophobic -- by necessity, the stories are often set in as few locations as possible. Raisin in the Sun manages to avoid this somewhat, but it takes more than a few outdoor scenes to completely shake that feeling. The colors are solid, though there are several times when the contrast seems too light, leaving everything flat. There's no grain to speak of, and in general this manages to make the video quality look quite good.

The sound is better than expected, with more channel separation than a dialogue-driven film usually gets. The music supports the emotional line of the story, but does so in a most overt and overbearing manner.

The star bonus feature is the 23-minute "Dreams Worthwhile: The Journey of A Raisin in the Sun," which not only discusses the previous Broadway and film adaptations, but also the life of Lorraine Hansberry. We even get interviews with her sister, talking about the life that inspired the play, intercut with scenes from the 1961 film.

Director Kenny Leon provides a commentary track that's plagued by quite a few stretches of dead air. This is his first film (he directed the 2004 Broadway production the film is based upon), and he's not shy about sharing his "secrets," but he could have used a second voice in the studio to keep him talking.

It's easy to see why this version A Raisin in the Sun received so much praise when it was originally broadcast. In my experience, television movies are generally forgettably mediocre or maudlin; anything that rises above the crowd even a little stands out. And yes, as something to watch on ABC on a Sunday night, Raisin would be great -- it's capably (if not spectacularly) acted, the pace is brisk and the tone isn't quite as preachy and purposeful as the original, but it still gets its message across. But now that it's on DVD and therefore being presented as a standalone film, this version isn't going to be compared to other TV movies; instead, it has to stand next to the 1961 Sydney Poitier version, and that's a long shadow to be stuck in. That version is available on an excellent DVD from the same company that produced this one, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Go with it.

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