Announcing the arrival of an extremely talented black female director, Eve's Bayou, Kasi Lemmons' feature directorial debut, is an intensely emotional family drama that mixes elements of Southern Gothic with the kinds of characters and tensions that prevail in the plays of Tennessee Williams and other Southern writers. Anchored by a strong cast, including Samuel L. Jackson (who's also credited as a producer), Lynn Whitfield, and Diahann Carroll, it's a well-made, if also old-fashioned, multi-generational drama set in the early 1960s.