To Sleep with Anger

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PG | 1h 42m | Drama

African-American drifter Danny Glover shows up at the LA doorstep of his old pal Paul Butler. In the spirit of auld lang syne, Butler takes Glover in, though his wife (Mary Alice) is not happy with this intrusion. She already has enough on her hands contending with her grown live-in son Richard Brooks and his real-estate agent wife Sheryl Lee Ralph.

Glover ingratiates himself by reminding family of their Southern roots; less positively, he drinks a great deal, brings suspicious-looking cronies into the household. When Butler suffers a stroke, Glover assumes charge of the house--whereupon his charm evaporates and disaster follows.

But Glover isn't really the villain of To Sleep With Anger: everyone in the film is depicted in all-too-human shades of gray. This effort by African American writer/ director Charles Burnett was the first of his films to attract widespread critical notice, almost 13 years after he created the seminal Killer of Sheep.