A Raisin in the Sun

Chicago Sun-TimesEddy Weiss

It's a beauty--in many ways richer than the Broadway production--and should not be missed.

USA TodayRobert Bianco

As terrific as the three women are, the movie would not have been made without Combs and would not work as well without him

Orlando SentinelHal Boedeker

ABC's new version of A Raisin in the Sun deserves fanfare: It's a strong contender for best TV movie of the season.

New York PostLinda Stasi

Combs does a great, great job--especially for someone who isn't known as an actor. And the rest of this cast glows. Don't miss it--and don't let your kids miss it either.

TimeJames Poniewozik

Rapper Sean Combs holds his own as ambitious son Walter Lee Jr., but Phylicia Rashad is devastating as a matriarch trying to hold her family together when a dream deferred turns dangerous.

Wall Street JournalDorothy Rabinowitz

This three-hour production, starring most of the cast of the 2004 Broadway revival, flies by with lightning speed--and that cast led by Ms. Rashad, superbly authoritative, impossibly attractive as Lena, is no small part of the reason. Ms. McDonald is heartbreaking as Ruth, desperate to understand her husband's descent into misery, and Mr. Combs, who portrays that husband, delivers a sterling performance.

Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert

This knockout adaptation of the Lorraine Hansberry play is a model of both the pure power of stage acting and TV’s potential to bring us up close to that acting without deadening it.

Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker

The whole production is a model of subtle adaptation.

Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall

Those three performances are so good that they lift up everyone around them, whether it's Combs (best whenever he has Rashad or McDonald to spar with) or John Stamos, surprisingly subtle in what could be a thankless role as the white man who doesn't want the Youngers moving into his neighborhood.

Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan

At three hours, this adaptation might seem a bit lengthy, but when Raisin’s female cast members are on the screen, the time flies by.

Pittsburgh Post-GazetteChris Rawson

[The audience] will see some wonderful acting, especially from the luminous McDonald as Walter Lee's wife, Ruth. And they will see the movie debut of director Leon, who has helped turn these fine stage performances into convincing movie work, with the help of a screenplay by Paris Qualles that opens up the play into small additional scenes that will be a special pleasure for those who already know the play on stage.

The New York TimesGinia Bellafante

There are no mediocre performances here.

TV GuideMatt Roush

The women are the main event here, including the wonderful Audra McDonald (also a Tony winner) as Walter Lee's long-suffering wife and Sanaa Lathan as his spunky sister. It would take a hard heart not to root for this family, to cry with them or to rejoice when they finally get their moment in the sun.

VarietyDennis Harvey

No one will mistake this well-produced but inevitably dialogue-driven piece for pure cinema, but Leon and adapter Paris Qualles open up the play just enough to avoid the usual stage-to-screen claustrophobia.

Hollywood ReporterJames Greenberg

The staging remains a bit creaky, but none of this diminishes the spirit of the play or the cast's commitment to the material, which almost seems palpable. It's still a provocative, powerful piece of work.

New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley

The women are the more critical characters, in any case, and Rashad, McDonald and Lathan give the show all the power it needs for its uncomfortable and frustrating yet in some ways hopeful ride through the life of a black family in 1950s Chicago.

NewsdayLinda Winer

This handsome, moodily shot movie liberates the play from the confines of the tiny apartment with almost too many scenes on the bus, in a bar and, most chilling, in the back room of a beauty shop where the neighborhood abortionist boils forceps.

Los Angeles TimesRobert Lloyd

The play, and the production, might have been better served by rolling a few cameras into the theater, but I know that isn't how people like to do these things.

Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm

It seems more a collection of cliches than the revered semiautobiographical work of the first black woman playwright to land on Broadway, a woman whose father fought a restrictive racial covenant all the way to the Supreme Court to keep his family's home in a white Chicago neighborhood in the '30s.