Black Cake

Black Cake isn’t perfect, but it comes together beautifully.

On the fairly frequent occasions when the script errs toward blandness or treacle, Eleanor sets it ablaze, burning off the excess sugar to uncover another layer of richness.

Still, even in unpacking Byron and Benny’s frustrating decisions, “Black Cake” beautifully illustrates how one woman’s secrets and choices can reverberate across time, even altering the lives of those who seemingly had no connection to Covey or Eleanor.

There’s deliciousness to be found in the specificity of Black Cake’s story, in being submerged in its island flavors and cultural complexities. (Speaking of, the costumes and production design are beautifully crafted, smoothly transporting viewers between decades and continents.) With an ocean’s worth of possibilities, however, we just wish it plumbed deeper.

Adapting an acclaimed novel that earned praise from, among others, Barack Obama, Black Cake serves up a sizable slice of period drama, deflated somewhat by the central character’s less-interesting children. The mix of soap-opera elements and mystery still makes this Hulu production enticing, but not as unreservedly as it could and perhaps should be.

Black Cake works best when it concentrates on how Covey became Eleanor and managed to make a life for herself despite the secrets she kept. The impact of those secrets on the present day feel like more of a punctuation on the story instead of part of the story itself.

Its characters are easy to sympathize with, its ideas unimpeachably well-meaning, its settings and costumes painstakingly curated. But the impression it leaves is of a home that, pretty though it might be, feels like no one’s actually lived in it for a day.