Review: Earth Mama

Director:  Savanah Leaf

Stars:  Erika Alexander, Doechii, Tia Nomore

You might have thought playing professional volleyball for Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics might be achievement enough for some, but Savanah Leaf isn’t yet done proving herself. Changing course, the British-American here presents her feature debut; a focused social realist missive from the Bay Area in Northern California, expanding upon a short she made in collaboration with Taylor Russell in 2020.

Pregnant single mother Gia (Tia Nomore) already has two children in the foster care system, and we find her in the process of considering whether to put her impending newborn up for adoption, not having the means to hold onto her family. Leaf presents her story plainly, with a washed out colour palette on 16mm that diffuses the power of pastels, bringing to mind an anaemic take on Sean Baker’s vision of poverty-line America. Leaf is similarly concerned with presenting the marginalised truthfully, shining a light on the varying struggles of Black women at the bottom of the food chain.

Boasting an acute ear for dialogue that rings true and representative, Leaf reveals Gia through her interactions with friends, family and foes – that last broadly represented by the passive bureaucracies of the (white) system that routinely imposes judgements upon her. Gia works part-time for a photographer, posing people before canvas backdrops. An early sequence of a mother/baby photo session subtly implies the daily struggles with perception that Earth Mama makes more pressing elsewhere. Black people face prejudice to conform to certain images, ideals or stereotypes that frequently originate outside of their own cultural sphere. Standing before a fantasy backdrop, we find ourselves confronted with an impermanent ideal that exists only for a moment. Stepping out from the canvas frame Leaf shows us her impression of the real world. It has greater dimension and complexity. It invites discussion and debate where a simplified image or snapshot does not. Still, the imprint of society’s expectations for that snapshot remain. An unjust source of tension, of shame.

An achingly sustained shot of Gia talking on the phone to one of her daughters – then playing her a song to lull her to sleep – reveals the naturalistic beauty of Nomore’s performance, as well as Leaf’s quiet confidence that she can capture the essence of what she’s trying to convey simply. The back page of this is an equally sustained shot of Gia looking out of the window as natural sound flushes through her perception. Then, again, this ends in a cut to those facsimile backdrops of her work. The real intruded on. This sequence of shots also evidences a wider discipline in the edit. A measure of the pace of life.

For all this talk of the real – including footage of a support group that seems like literal documentary – there’s a dreamy quality to Earth Mama. Much of this can be credited to the watery natural light captured by cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes. He and Leaf favour languid sunsets that leak over the characters as they laconically discuss their problems or rest in contemplative silence, set to the beautiful counterpoint of Kelsey Lu’s delicate music that moves the picture like a balmy breeze. Time, place, people – all are given equal footing here. One startling scene, meanwhile, briefly evidences Leaf’s potential for conjuring pure nightmares to screen.

This is tender, assured and frequently heavy filmmaking, where touches of joy are precious for their scarcity. Yet Leaf keeps us levitating, somehow. Our feet suspended above the ground like little Toni in The Fits. It’s a magic mix that marks out a new voice who has arrived fully-formed. Leaf is the real deal, and she’s only just begun.