3.5 stars. Rated TV-MA, for profanity and mild sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.3.20
Sensitive, respectful children never want to disappoint their parents.
The guilt can be deeply distressing.
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| Elijah (Mamoudou Athie, left) can't find the words to tell his father (Courtney B. Vance) that he has no interest in taking over the family's barbecue restaurant business. |
But a crunch point hits when a recently minted adult child embraces a career path completely at odds with what a parent has assumed, planned and counted upon.
Uncorked — a Netflix original — is a modest but engaging feature film debut by writer/director Prentice Penny, best known (until now) for writing and producing a popular string of TV comedies such as Scrubs, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Insecure. This heartfelt little drama therefore is something of a departure, because — allowing for a for a few droll exchanges — Uncorked is mostly serious.
It’ll also feel very familiar to anybody who survived a similarly uncomfortable experience regarding parental expectations.
Elijah (Mamoudou Athie) has grown up helping his folks — Louis and Sylvia (Courtney B. Vance and Niecy Nash) — run the popular Memphis barbecue joint that was founded by the young man’s grandfather, and has been passed down since then. Although Louis has tolerated his son’s previous career flirtations, there’s no question that — eventually — Elijah is expected to carry on the family tradition.
Unfortunately, Elijah’s current fixation looks to be The One … and it has nothing to do with purchasing just the right wood to properly smoke ribs. Thanks to supplementing his income with a part-time job at a liquor store that specializes in wines, and the encouragement of its owner (Matthew Glave, nicely understated), Elijah has decided to become a master sommelier: an elite designation granted solely to the few able to pass its notoriously difficult annual exam.
Preparing for that challenge will require months of extremely intense — and time-consuming — study.
Louis isn’t the only one whose eyebrows lift, when Elijah confesses this desire during one of his family’s typically boisterous dinners; mishearing “sommelier” as Somalia, half the table wants to know why the heck he’d want to move to Africa.
And it isn’t merely the initial snickers of family members. We’ve already witnessed another, subtler hurdle, when Elijah joined a posh afternoon wine tasting … and its veritable sea of white faces. Penny (to his credit) never stresses this point, and Athie’s performance gives us no indication that Elijah views this as an obstacle; even so, we have to believe that it leaves the young man feeling somewhat isolated.
