Alfre Woodard Stars in ‘Juanita’

The stars shine a little brighter when Alfre Woodard is in the picture, but in Netflix’s ‘Juanita’ (2019), the multiple award-winning actress takes centre stage.

Starring as the titular character, a nurse whose children are a mire of ghetto clichés including a “hoeing” responsibility-absolving single mother, a son in jail and another in a gang, the film presents an older black woman fraying at the edges while carrying her family on her back.

Though the life and trials of the long suffering black mother have long been held up as some kind of inspiring martyrdom, in ‘Juanita’, this old chestnut hits the road.

Literally.

Urgently making her way west on a Greyhound bound for pretty much the first place that calls to her on the map, Juanita packs her anxiety in a rolley bag and travels solo ultimately finding freedom, healing and extending her family on the way.

A rallying cry for older black women to travel alone, live their best lives and give their grown children the push they need to come into their own, ‘Juanita’ does little to impress with regard to pacing, direction and erratic breaking of the fourth wall peppered with lusty dream sequences featuring Blair Underwood.

Nevertheless, and despite some preachy moments, the film presents something memorable.

Woodard and James Beach starring in a narrative where the middle-aged black woman isn’t just magical (as black girls are) but a woman giving herself a second chance at life on her own terms amidst the charm of a Native American-owned French restaurant in a town called Paper Moon.

Stream this for a novel, relatively complex and even inspiring take on middle-aged black women and read Sheila Williams’ ‘Dancing On the Edge of the Roof’ for the source material.