As the film begins, Ruth Younger (Ruby Dee) wakes her husband Walter Lee (Sidney Poitier) and their son, Travis, to get them ready for another day – she moves about the small and tight tenement apartment, preparing breakfast and going through her daily routine – it is in the opening five or so minutes that the extraordinary nature of this film; with its simmering power becomes apparent.
The crowded tenement living has not only Ruth, Walter and their son, but also Walter Lee’s sister Beneatha (Diana Sands) and his mother, Lena (Claudia McNeil – the matriarch of the family). With this setting, the dynamic of family; the pressures of an inherently unjust society and the struggle to simply ‘be’ are explored within the story.
Lorraine Hansberry's Prize Winning Play Adapted with Remarkable Success
Written by Lorraine Hansberry from her groundbreaking stage play, A Raisin in the Sun tells the story of a poor and struggling black family who believe that their salvation could be the insurance check they are to receive after the death of Lena’s husband. While everyone has some idea on what could or should be done with the money when it arrives, it is Walter Lee who pins not only his dreams, but everything that he believes he can make of himself and the future of his family on that money. But even before the money comes, the frayed fabric of this family begins to tear.
The poignant and almost poetic performances by Ruby Dee and Sidney Poitier come positively alive on the screen. Since this film is was based on a play, and the screenplay was written by the play’s author, many of the passionate and vulnerable monologues made it into the script – and during these incredible moments, the very soul of this struggling black family is laid bare, examined and painfully described.
Film Provides Rare Look at the Struggles of African-Americans
The film really accomplishes two very compelling feats. First, audiences everywhere were provided an incredible and unheard of glimpse into the life of African Americans. Not only were stories featuring African American’s rare – where they were available, they were barely afforded much by the way of realism. It reaches the heart of just how hard it was to be black in America – to fight the struggles of life while fighting the oppressive wall of racism. The second major accomplishment was the exploration of what it meant to be a black man in those times; endeavoring to provide for his family; to earn respect for himself and to still be able to realize his dreams.
Sidney Poitier’s portrayal of that man, Walter Lee is a revelation. He delivers a performance that pulses like a beating heart. His Golden Globe nominated portrayal of a chauffer dealing with the burdens of being a Black Man in 1960’s America - struggling to become more than the world believes he can be, and fighting his family and himself in the process, is remarkable. Several times during the film, he explodes with a veracious passion; whether it is railing against the world stacked against him, or with a near maniacal glee at the possibility of a dream being realized; he is absolutely mesmerizing.
Ruby Dee's superbly salient performance, for which she won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress, is outstanding not so much for the lines she delivers, but the lifetimes worth of experience and struggle she portrays with a simple look, a forced smile and the way she bears the silent burden of a world working so hard against her. She exudes the essence of strength under such extraordinary pressures.
The rest of the cast provide fine performances also, with Claudia McNeil as Lena Younger delivering eloquent and powerful moments and Diana Sands playing the whimsical and youthful Beneatha wonderfully.
Superb Film Discusses Racism and the Weight of Being a Black Man in American
This film gives a sincere look at the difficulties faced by African American families at such a difficult time in America’s history. The pervasive racism that had moved from the being overt and socially ‘accepted’ to being cloaked in the airs of a perfunctory civility; tasting like hypocrisy of the highest order, is exposed and discussed openly. It superbly explores what it means to be a man, to be a black man bowing under the pressures of a world that closes its doors all too easily and it reveals conditions of an American that summarily dismissed the needs and hopes of families who didn’t look like people on TV and in magazines and for whom no sense of equality seemed to exists in any form.
Under all these weights, this family finds the hard path to triumph and the righteous road to reconciliation. It is with that spirit that we, the audience, remain enthralled from the opening seconds to the closing credits.
