Black Nativity

It’s never a good sign when the one thing your musical needs less of is musical numbers, but that’s the case with Black Nativity. Director Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou) grabs Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett and Jennifer Hudson to star in an unidentifiably loose adaptation of the Langston Hughes play. Langston (Jacob Latimore)—references to his namesake happen with alarming regularity—is sent by his mother (Hudson) to live with her parents while she deals with being evicted. Her father (Whittaker) is a proud man of the cloth and her mother needs more to do in this screenplay, because she’s played by Angela Bassett. The title Black Nativity refers to an annual Christmas Eve celebration at the reverend’s church, where three generations of family strife ultimately collide. The acting is pretty good, but there are tons of clichés and even though Jennifer Hudson sounds incredible, the songs really don’t stick.