Originally an award winning play, Raisin in the Sun covers a myriad of topics from race relations to the problems of upward mobility to poverty and the yearning for change. A Raisin in the Sun is also about family, and the very deep ways that the choices we make affect those that we love and care for.

Set in the 1950s, the African-American Younger family live together in a Chicago apartment in a poor neighborhood. Struggling to make ends meet, their lives are significantly altered with the arrival of an insurance check. Every member of the family quietly plans to spend the ten thousand dollars in their own way: on medical school, to finance a risky investment scheme, or to simply live a little easier.

As the hotheaded eldest son of the family, Sean Combs delivers a performance that is noteworthy in that it fails on almost every level. It's contrived, overdone and weak. Combs never allows us to forget for a moment that we are watching a film; he utterly fails to draw the viewer into the carefully crafted world. Without the perfect strength of the three female leads, Combs' performance alone would have sunk the film. The three lead actresses -- Phylicia Rashad as the formidable matriarch, Audra MacDonald as the love-starved daughter-in-law, and Sanaa Lathan, the daughter with dreams of medical school -- convince powerfully at every turn. While minimally stagey, their portrayals of three women at different phases of life with different (and often opposing) desires is the strong point of the play.

The music also is anything but subtle, childishly boisterous at parts and intended to pull the viewer along rather than lead. A lighter hand would have sufficed nicely, but we are subjected to the full force of an orchestra. The lighting and costumes are vibrant and well done, but still seem to scream theater rather than cinema. Ultimately we are left to ask: Why a film? With a overtly theatrical performance by Combs, slightly overdone costumes and play-like staging, why mess with a good thing? Is this merely for archival purposes? A Raisin in the Sun explores powerful themes of family and race, but could have been enhanced by better production values.

Overall: B-

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