Pomegranate

After four years in prison for drug possession, Ranita Atwater is released and tries to get her two kids back. However, she must attend supervised visits with a social worker, submit to urine tests, and attend mandated therapy and substance-recovery meetings. As she counts the days until she’s reunited with her children, Ranita looks back at past mistakes, horrible ex-boyfriends, and Maxine, the woman she fell in love with during her incarceration. Machelle Williams gives a powerful performance as present-day Ranita. She vocalizes her as a Black woman who wants to keep it together but oozes desperation, doubt, and sorrow. Ranita tries her best to stay clear of her old crowd and potential vices, but there are temptations. Meanwhile, Janina Edwards tells Ranita’s story in third-person, non-chronological flashbacks. Edwards takes Lee’s (The Serpent’s Gift) lyrical prose and slowly peels each layer that created present Ranita—mostly notably, the intergenerational trauma from her mother.