The conversation around how unconditional love shows up within lifelong friendships often takes a back burner compared to romantic partnerships. Still, the film The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat puts friendships under a microscope, magnifying how sisterhood can be quite healing.
Centered on three characters, Barbara Jean (Sanaa Lathan), Clarice (Uzo Aduba), and Odette (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), affectionately referred to as The Supremes, the film explores a world where friendship is the saving grace for a trio of young girl as they matriculate into adulthood, navigating themes of grief, acceptance and love.
“I don’t want to get too heavy about this, but I think it’s important because what we’re talking about it. I was thinking, I have hypertension,” Ellis-Taylor said during a cast interview with Blavity’s Shadow and Act.
She delivers a brilliant performance of what it means to be the “strong friend” through her character Odette, who simply does not take ish from anyone.
“I suffer from high blood pressure, and I was thinking about my cousins and my friends, and the circle I’m in, which includes my family members and my friends. … All of us have high blood pressure, and they’re all Black women,” she continued. “I know that’s genetic. I know that is DNA, cultural DNA, actually culturally genetic stuff, but I also think it’s because of the stuff and the weight we carry. We do it with election; we choose to do it. We love to do it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t weigh on us. The great thing about this Supremes story and this love story between these three women is what Clarice and Barbara Jean do for Odette — and hopefully what we do for each other — is they pull her coattails and give her permission to be vulnerable.”
In a separate conversation, Kyanna Simone, who plays a younger version of Odette, honed in on the beauty of being able to select the friends you want to surround yourself with. She reflected on how those relationships become a chosen family.
“Odette, she’s the type of person to see someone like Barbara Jean and be like, ‘I know you might not recognize this type of energy, but I am here to make sure that you’re okay, and we’re friends now,’” Simone said. “I’ve personally had that experience before when I was live 5 or 6; I remember I had a friend in elementary school, and they just walked up to me and pushed me, and I was like, ‘What did you just do that for?’ And they’re like, ‘We’re best friends now,’ and to this day, she and I are best friends. And it was very unconventional, but I feel like I chose to be her friend.”
She added, “Your family, you’re born into that, and whether you have a great relationship with your family is up to the course of time. But your friends, your sisters, your Supremes, that’s a relationship that you’re able to nurture differently, and I think that’s just really beautifully told throughout the film.”
Lathan’s character, Barbara Jean, has been plagued with trauma and setbacks from an early age, but when she becomes connected to Clarice and Odette, things change for the better. Even when life continues to throw lemons at this Supreme, she always seems to find solace with her girls.
“Clarice and Odette are her angels,” Lathan said. “I don’t think she would have been alive without them. There are those friends you just meet right away, and it’s like you recognize each other from another life. It was that kind of soulmate friendship, and I think the story is so beautiful. They’re all incredibly different, and they accept each other wholeheartedly, unconditionally and through the ages, through all of the ups and downs. I mean, that is a great love story. I loved playing Barbara Jean, and I loved being in a movie that celebrates this type of friendship because it’s a real thing that people have.”
Tati Gabrielle, who portrays the younger Barbara Jean in the film, echoed the Love and Basketball actor’s sentiments.
“They saved her life, and I feel like in Barbara Jean’s position, to go from a space of it doesn’t seem that anybody, even the people that are supposed to look out for you, like your family, who you think is like, ‘Oh no, they’re gonna be there,’ … but to have people come in that chose her, stood up for her,” Gabrielle said. “I think that opened a whole new world for Barbara Jean, and to understand that I can choose my family, I can choose the people that I have around, I can be uplifted in an environment — it doesn’t always have to be bad. It doesn’t have to be dragging me down. For Barbara Jean, it’s her community that became everything to her; that was her saving grace in life.”
The third Supreme, Clarice, represents the ideals around the time that the film took place (the 1960s and 1990s), when women often were forced to choose between having a career and having a family, and the feelings of regret that followed when one chose the latter.
“We really are Superwomen. And having friends to support you throughout it, it takes a village, and I think Clarice represents that. And you kind of get to see throughout the film, when we get to the 90s, how it’s affected her,” Abigail Achiri, who portrays the younger Clarice in the film, said.
“I love the redemption,” she added. “She takes her power back and decides, you know what? I made this choice. And even though I stand by my decision now in this season, I see where I could have done things differently, but it’s not too late. Having friends, she stays at Odette’s childhood home. And the friendships will last forever, and you’ll always have that support.”
The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat, a Searchlight Pictures film, is now available to stream on Hulu.
Watch the full interviews above featuring Lathan, Ellis-Taylor, Simone, Gabrielle, and Achiri, as well as Mekhi Phifer and Russell Hornsby.
