Lila and Eve: Sundance Review

Courtesy of Sundance International Film Festival

Viola Davis and Jennifer Lopez in 'Lila and Eve'

An instant camp classic, especially because it takes itself so adorably seriously

Sundance Film Festival (Premieres)

Viola Davis, Jennifer Lopez, Shea Whigham

Charles Stone III

Lila and Evestars Viola Davis as a mother grieving over her dead son, who teams up with another bereaved mother, played by Jennifer Lopez, to seek revenge on the gangsters responsible. Its an instant camp classic, especially because it takes itself so adorably seriously. It will be the perfect film for girlfriends of both genders to watch together in giggling gaggles when it screens eventually on Lifetime, one of the films producing partners. Viewers may enjoy devising drinking games that involve doing shots every time our avenging angels whack some dude, or glugging a glass of wine every time theres a patently obvious clue leading to the films big silly climactic twist.

In truth, star/executive producer Davis nearly ruins the fun, the big spoilsport, by projecting such quiet dignity as a woman racked with pain. But even she cant save this hot, nonsensical mess. Plus Lopez, her one-time castmate from Out of Sight,is on hand with her Acting Face and meticulously applied, please-take-me-seriously no-make-up make-up to suck any claims the film might have to serious drama right out of the air. For Jenny from the Block, this is her second go round as a woman hell-bent on vengeance after the deliciously ludicrous Enough (2002). They should have made this an outright sequel and called it Enough, Already.

Davis plays Lila, a working single mother in a rough Atlanta neighborhood whose eldest son Stephon (Aml Ameen) is about to go off to college when hes killed accidentally in a drive-by shooting. Lila falls to bits, and can barely cope with looking after her remaining teenage son Justin (Ron Caldwell). The police show precious little enthusiasm for finding Stephons murderer, and just to add insult to injury, Holliston (Shea Whigham, Boardwalk Empire), the detective in charge of the case, barely remembers who Lila is when she comes in to speak to him. But it's made clear later that hes not really such a bad guy because he likes Columbo, and makes fun of his partner Scaketti (Andre Royo) for using big words, and we all know people with large vocabularies are snobs who have to be taken down a peg, right?

In search of solace, Lila joins a kind of 12-step support group for bereaved woman that has some kind of super-treacly name like Mothers of New Angels. There, Lila approaches Eve (Lopez), a former interior decorator who shares Lilas anger and frustration with the police's ineffectualness. Eve agrees to become Lilas sponsor for the group, and over glasses of red wine one night, the women find a gun in Justins book bag. Lila is horrified, but Eve eggs her on to go to the drug-dealing corner where Stephon was killed to look for someone who might know who shot him.

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Lila and Eve: Sundance Review