honeydripper-1.jpgHoneydripper, the new film from indie icon John Sayles, is coming to Alabama. On February 4, at the Bama Theater right here in Tuscaloosa, a reception at 6 pm will be followed by a screening at 7:30 and a Q&A with Sayles and producer Maggie Renzi at 9:30. The film, set in a fictional juke joint called the Honeydripper, was shot largely in Butler county in South Alabama. The screening is sponsored in part by the Alabama Blues Project, and the reception will feature local blues heroes Willie King and Carolyn Shines.

Honeydripper is generating generally favorable reviews, with a 75% positive rating at Rottentomatoes.com. Roger Ebert has this to say

“[Sayles] has made 19 films, and none of them are two-character studies. As the writer of his own work, he instinctively embraces the communities in which they take place. He’s never met a man who was an island. Everyone connects, and when that includes black and white, rich and poor, young and old, there are lessons to be learned, and his generosity to his characters overflows into affection.”

This seems to me to be right on the money — Sayles’ films are all about community, all about the interactions between people and between people and their environments. In the seminal Return of the Sedcaucus Seven seven friends gather to reminisce over a weekend, predating The Big Chill by three years. In Lone Star, past inequalities create indelible and perhaps insurmountable constraints on the present. And in Casa de los Babys, Sayles examines the effects of the baby-adoption industry on both the wealthy Americans that drive it and the Latin American communities that benefit.

By all accounts, Honeydripper continues in this vein, exploring the effects of change on a small Alabama community, and how it’s refracted through life in the juke joint of the same name. I look forward to seeing it.

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