Punning titles are rarely a promising sign in the world of movies. Too often it seems that the film has been fashioned around the title, and too often the title is the best thing about the film. Deliver Us From Eva isn't a badly-made movie, but it is a predictable and lazily-written one that eventually outstays its welcome despite some spirited performances from an attractive black cast.
Gabrielle Union plays the eponymous Eva, an uptight twenty-something health inspector who has raised her three younger sisters single-handedly since the death of their parents when she was 18. Much to the chagrin of their male partners, Eva is still running her sister's lives, even though they are all now adults. To put an end to this situation, they hire master player and meat delivery man – make of that what you will – Ray (a miscast LL Cool J) to woo her into moving to another city where he can then dump her before returning home. Immediately it becomes evident to even the most casual viewer that this is a perfect plan. A plan without a flaw of any description. How can it possibly go wrong? Hmmm, we think, looks like the writers might have written themselves into a corner with this one
As you might have already gathered, Deliver Us From Eva's biggest problem is that it announces its divorce from reality within seconds of the opening credits. Even movies like this, which inhabit a self-contained urban never-never land in which the real world never intrudes, need to possess some degree of believability, but this one doesn't seem to care whether it makes sense on any level. Eva starts out as an overbearing monster with a hair-trigger temper, all tightly-buttoned business suits and severe hairstyle, but is swiftly transformed butterfly-like into a hip and sassy 'sister' by the attentions of a nondescript man who stands out from the crowd thanks only to his size. Funny how Hollywood comedy screenwriters so often seem to believe that all a stuffy woman needs to lose her repression is a good seeing to in the bedroom.
Eva's sisters, each of them bright and beautiful, seem curiously content to allow their older sibling to dominate their lives, and begin every other sentence with the words 'Eva says
' like mindless dolls with a key and a piece of string in their back. Quite frankly, rather than wanting to get closer to these Stepford candidates you'd think the hapless trio of men would be seeking out ways of putting a little distance between them and their partners. Given that Ray's seduction methods possess the sophistication of an average nineteen year-old's, the ferocious Eva's defences crumble surprisingly quickly, and it isn't long before she's rolling around in his lap like a playful kitten. While this may have just about got by had someone with a little more charisma than LL Cool J taken on the role of Ray, the former rapper's performance is so understated that he manages to conjure no sexual chemistry whatsoever with the delectable Miss Union (and I write that with the fearlessness of someone who knows that a large body of water separates me and the rapper-dude). Mr. J is a curious choice for the role: it calls for a smooth seducer, an effortless ladies man with an air of confidence that LL (what the hell do you call him, anyway?) lacks. He was presumably selected to lure in the young black audience, but he's too big and clumsy for the part of Ray, and never looks comfortable. His character is all wrong for the feisty Eva, anyway, and that's another of the movie's weaknesses. The characters are either paper-thin or hopelessly stereotypical (eg: an outrageously camp homosexual hairdresser – I wonder how long it took them to dream up that one). While the minor characters are picked off-the-shelf from some kind of screenwriter's equivalent of Wal-Mart, the central characters' are never filled out, and their actions are designed solely to drive the action along with no consideration given to consistency or logic. Once the basic premise is established, the movie embarks on a slow journey toward farce, without any stops for development or insight, before taking an ill-advised left turn toward a conclusion as corny as it is contrived. And it arrives in such a rush that you can be forgiven for believing that director Gary Hardwick wants to get the journey over with as much as the viewer does.
The only real positive to be taken from the film is Gabrielle Union on whose shoulders, thanks to Cool J's reserved performance, most of its weight falls. She shoulders the burden admirably, proving herself to be an adept and appealing light comedienne, and she deserves to be seen in more – and better – leading roles.
To try to defend movies like this by declaring that they aren't supposed to be taken seriously is something of a cop-out. How much leeway do you give a flick simply because it's a light comedy with no artistic aspirations? Does this excuse its makers from striving to create believable scenarios and characters, and from making at least some attempt to add something new? I don't think so, somehow: comedy writers owe the audience as much as any other kind of writer.
I can't remember laughing once during this film – and I'm a man: easily entertained, you know?
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