Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) is a Southern drama-comedy directed by Callie Khouri — watch it online on iFILM. Adapted from Rebecca Wells's 1996 novel, the film brings together Sandra Bullock, Ellen Burstyn, Ashley Judd and Maggie Smith in a story about lifelong friendship, inherited wounds, and a Louisiana childhood that one daughter has never managed to leave behind.

Playwright Sidda (Bullock) gives an interview in which she says something unflattering about her mother Vivi. Vivi cuts her off completely. Her oldest friends — the self-appointed Ya-Ya Sisterhood, bound together since girlhood — decide to intervene in the most direct way possible: they kidnap Sidda, drive her to a cabin, and take turns telling her the story of who her mother actually was. The film moves between Sidda's present and the Louisiana of the 1950s, where Ashley Judd plays young Vivi — radiant and unraveling at the same time.

Khouri wrote Thelma & Louise, and that same lack of patience for tidy resolutions carries into this one. The ensemble is the reason to watch: four women who each bring a different register to the same question of what mothers pass down and what daughters can forgive. Stream Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) online on iFILM.