Three women in their late forties turn up to claim the inheritance of the late Frankie Lymon, each claiming to be his widow: Zola Taylor (Halle Berry) a singer; Elizabeth ‘Mickey’ Waters (Vivica A Fox) a petty thief newly released from prison; and Emira Eagle (Lela Rochon) a small-town Southern schoolteacher. By the time they’re through, the lawyers have had most of what there was.
The makeup was pretty good though they all look nearer forty than to fifty. Each of the characters has a makeup that reflects not only their age but their lifestyle and life choices: the wear and tear is rightly much more obvious on Elizabeth than on Zola but paradoxically it’s much easier to believe in Zola as a well-maintained forty-eight than in Elizabeth as a well-worn forty-nine.
These twenties to middle-age makeups require a greater subtlety both from the makeup artist and in performance than a youth to old-age transformation. Halle Berry commented:
They used makeup and prostheses to turn us into older women. But we had to really be careful to remember the subtleties of behavior from year to year, from the fifties to the sixties into the eighties. What’s it like to be forty-five? It’s subtle – not like going from thirty to eighty. You have to find the little nuances of character to make someone age like that.
Ken Diaz and John E Jackson were credited as prosthetic makeup artists: Mark Sanchez was key makeup artist and Mary Burton was Halle Berry’s makeup artist.