Earth Mama

Name: Earth Mama
Genre: Drama
Released: July 7, 2023
Duration: 97 min
Rating: 84
Cast: Bokeem Woodbine, Bruhfromlastnight, Doechii, Dominic Fike, Erika Alexander

2023

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Universal acclaim based on 24 Critic Reviews

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Earth Mama

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Movie Details & Credits

A24 | Release Date: July 7, 2023 | Not Rated

Starring: Bokeem Woodbine, Bruhfromlastnight, Doechii, Dominic Fike, Erika Alexander, Kami Jones, Keta Price, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Slim Yari, Tia Nomore

Summary: A pregnant single mother, with two children in foster care, embraces her Bay Area community as she fights to reclaim her family.

Director: Savanah Leaf

Genre(s): Drama

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 97 min

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Critic Reviews

100

RogerEbert.com Peyton Robinson

Jul 21, 2023

Bolstered by expert empathy, understated direction, and evocative performances, Earth Mama highlights resilience while whispers of social misogynoir are incorporated without abandon and confronted head-on by the film’s women. Read full review

Lovia Gyarkye

Jan 25, 2023

Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama is a melancholic story transformed into a precious portrait by the director’s generous and nurturing eye. She digs into the familiar landscape of a Black mother facing an oppressive legal system and pulls from it the most unexpected and humanizing details. She observes them with a loving curiosity, and then asks viewers to do the same. Read full review

Gregory Nussen

Jun 30, 2023

Despite Earth Mama’s bleak subject matter, it exudes a beatific warmth, in large part because Leaf takes remarkable pains to dramatize a web of solidarity between a group of Black women alongside her depiction of the very system that disenfranchises them. Read full review

Tim Grierson

Jan 25, 2023

Earth Mama offers no falsely encouraging happy ending, but its clear-eyed humanity nonetheless feels like a balm. In a society that often tries to sweep the poor away so that they’re out of sight, this film encourages us to see — and to care. Read full review

David Jenkins

Dec 7, 2023

On the evidence of the astonishingly-assured debut, Earth Mama, we’ll be seeing work from writer-director Savanah Leaf for many years to come. Read full review

Screen Rant Mae Abdulbaki

Aug 1, 2023

Earth Mama is the kind of film that draws you in and keeps you hooked with its powerful storytelling and the layered intimacy within Nomore’s understated performance. Read full review

The Playlist Robert Daniels

Jan 25, 2023

Sometimes Leaf asks us to see too much. But Earth Mama is grounded enough and empathetic enough to be worth the bleak toll it exacts. Read full review

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burnerboy2000

Jul 15, 2023

Earth Mama is an exquisite meditation on the difficulty of being a single black mother trying to reclaim one’s family and preserve the future of one’s unborn child. The film, with its patient, deliberate mise en scene, asks us to endure through the hardship and hopelessness that blackEarth Mama is an exquisite meditation on the difficulty of being a single black mother trying to reclaim one’s family and preserve the future of one’s unborn child. The film, with its patient, deliberate mise en scene, asks us to endure through the hardship and hopelessness that black mothers face when pitted against the systematic oppression that society and the child protective care system pose.

Savanah Leaf’s brilliance is shown by her ability to build emotion and drama without ever falling victim to cliche. She pulls out tour de force performances from Tia Nomore and Doechii that feel well beyond their age and experience. She effortlessly interweaves magical realism with naturalism, rendering visual poetry that enables us the time and space to reflect and empathize with the complex emotional web of motherhood. The end result is a film that never forces an agenda upon us. Scenes unfold in front of us and allow us to be the judge of who and what determines Gia’s fate. Is it Gia’s personal flaws or the system that batters her down which is ultimately responsible for her inability to parent the kids that she should be entitled to raise?

An American period piece with European sensibilities - Earth Mama feels destined to be helmed as one of the decade’s best independent films. Leaf has a promising, long career ahead of her, and I feel blessed to be in her audience.… Expand

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