Plot
Soul Food is told through the eyes of 11-year-old Ahmad (Hammond), follows the trials of the Joseph family, a close-knit Chicago family that gets together to have Sunday dinner every week, with plenty of soul food to go around. As Mother (Big Mama) Joe (Hall) has three daughters, who each have had varying success in life: oldest daughter Teri (Williams) has become a successful lawyer but has also suffered relationship problems ever since her younger sister Maxine (Fox) stole and married Teri's old boyfriend, Kenny (Sams). Teri's current husband, Miles (Beach), also a lawyer, desires to follow his dreams of being an R&B musician, which Teri doesn't seem to support. Youngest Joseph daughter Robin (Long)—nicknamed "Bird"—has just opened a barbershop/beauty parlor, and most of the family is uneasy about her marriage to Lem (Phifer), an ex-convict.
These problems are complicated when Mother Joe, the diabetic but wise and caring matriarch of the family and the glue that holds it together, suffers a debilitating stroke during an operation to amputate her leg and slips into a coma. Without her guidance, the family begins to fall apart. Teri takes in her troubled cousin Faith (Ravera), who grows close to, and eventually gets caught having sex with Miles by Teri. As an ex-con, Lem cannot find a job, so Bird makes an uneasy deal with her ex-boyfriend Simuel St. James (Mel Jackson) to get Lem a job, but this leads to a series of events that eventually cause him to be arrested again. By contrast, Kenny and Maxine are reasonably stable, and have their third child at the beginning of the film; however, Teri and Maxine's constant feuding—stemmed mainly from Teri's jealousy of Maxine's successful relationship with Kenny and her frustration over everyone seemingly taking advantage of her wealth, as well as Maxine's resentfulness of Teri's bossiness and insensitivity to family tradition—are the main factors in what starts to drive the family apart. Ahmad, Kenny and Maxine's oldest child, is worried about the state of his extended family, and conspires to find a way to bring them all back together.
Ahmad tells everyone about a stash of money that Big Mama had hidden away some time ago though everyone believes that this is simply a myth, however, Ahmad manages to get everyone together for Sunday dinner. Things go a bit uneasy at first but everyone is upset that there was no money at all; Maxine chastises her son for lying about the money but Ahmad says tearfully that it was the only way to get everyone back together again. As Maxine is comforting her son, the kitchen accidentally catches on fire, they all work together to try and to put it out; when they put the fire out, Uncle Pete, Big Mama's brother, comes down with his television and drops it to reveal the money that Big Mama had hidden away.
Things start to go well for the family, despite Miles and Teri's divorce, he still comes by for Sunday dinner, Lem and Bird are expecting their first child, Faith is finally becoming part of the family again and Uncle Pete who never came out of his room, starts to join the family.
Read more about this topic: Soul Food (film)
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