Posted: 07/26/2010

Rain

by Elaine Hegwood Bowen

Rain is such an inspiring film, which has been billed as a movie “in the vein of Precious,” starring Monique. This movie does have some of the same elements as Precious, a mother and daughter who don’t get along well, and the daughter cleaves to a teacher to provide guidance and encouragement. But in no way does Rain present all the turmoil and abuse meted out by mother to daughter as portrayed in Precious.

Now that that’s out of the way, Rain stars Avatar’s CCH Pounder, Nicki Micheaux, Irma P. Hall, Renel Naomi Brown and veteran film actor Calvin Lockhart, as he plays in his last film in his homeland of Nassau, Bahamas. And it stands on its own as a great film!

Rain is available on DVD July 27 from Image Entertainment, and it tells the story of Rain, played by newcomer Brown, as a spirited 14-year-old girl who, after the death of her grandmother, Hall, forgoes the sheltered, simple life of her island home to seek out her estranged mother in the big city.

Rain hopes to reconcile with her drug-addled mother who is working as a prostitute and had it made, while Rain was living with the grandmother, but the mother isn’t emotionally or financially able to care of Rain.

The young girl is basically left to her own devices to overcome hunger, loneliness and what seem like insurmountable odds. That is until she meets Coach Adams, played by Pounder.
Adams makes Rain feel comfortable in a sea of classmates who look down on her, because she doesn’t have a uniform. But Rain finds herself when she starts running track. And she seems to run all her cares away, even the fact that she never really seems to connect with her mother.

The countryside of the Bahamas is breathtaking, as Coach Adams demands that Rain performs and pushes her to enter a track competition. Rain will take viewers on an unforgettable journey into the heart of a child, into the pulse of a country and the spirit of its people.

This award-winning story of a beautiful, ambitious young woman has earned various recognitions from the Pan African Film Festival; Bahamas International Film Festival; Women’s International Film Festival Seoul Korea and the Creteil International Women’s Film Festival, France.
I really enjoyed this movie and enjoyed it even more when I learned it was Lockhart’s final film, even though he only appeared in it for a few minutes. Rain is available on DVD July 27 from Image Entertainment. Visit the Web site at www.image-entertainment.com.

Elaine Hegwood Bowen is an editor, writer and film critic in Chicago.

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