Deliver
Us from Eva is a romantic comedy directed by Gary Hardwick.
While Eva Dandridge (played by Gabrielle Union) was a teenager,
her parents died in an automobile accident, leaving her
in charge of her three baby sisters. When her high school
boyfriend Lucius Johnson (played by Dorian Gregory) dumped
her, she abandoned her childhood ambition of managing a
horse farm to become a civil servant and a waitress to
support her sisters. When they were old enough to get jobs,
she was promoted to a position of LA health inspector and
she resigned as a waitress, yet they still continue to
rely on her for advice. Eva perceives that her responsibilities
preclude any further amorous relationships, though her
younger sisters have boyfriends or husbands. Yet the men
in her sister's lives are frustrated because Eva advises
them not to have sex, and when the film begins she even
kicks the men out of one of her sister's houses, where
they are watching sports on television, to hold a book
club meeting. The men retreat to a bar, where they plot
to humble Eva by paying Ray Adams (played by LL Cool J)
$5,000 plus expenses to trap her into falling in love with
him and then later dropping her. The men try to follow
a script similar to Shakespeare's The Taming of the
Shrew,
while Black women, more clever than Black men, try to trump
them by following a plot similar to that of Aristophanes's
Lysistrata. Ray indeed plays his role, and for a time the
three men are making headway with the three women. But
Ray and Eva fall in love with each other. Ray, who was
abandoned at birth and never stays in any one town very
long, even applies himself so well to his job, for the
first time in his life, that he becomes the head of the
meat delivery company for which he has been working. Eva
tells her sisters about the wonderful things that Ray does,
and the three Black women now insist that their men measure
up to the high standards of the Ray-Eva relationship. The
three men are furious that Ray is not fulfilling the terms
of his contract with them. Admitting that he unexpectedly
fell in love with Eva, Ray agrees to pay back the money.
However, the three abduct Ray, tie him up in a warehouse,
and one of the men (an LAPD police officer) fakes his death,
so a funeral service is planned. But Ray unties himself
and goes to the funeral, where he admits to Eva the truth
about the plot as well as his profound love. Eva, however,
dumps him and moves to Chicago, where she receives a higher
position. How Ray manages to win back her affection is
the climax of the film, which shows the domestic power
of African American women. MH
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