This was Esther Rolle's final performance, before she died.
Alfre Woodard shares the same birthday as actress Esther Rolle on November 8th
While the Chicago scenes were filmed in Toronto, there's no information as to where the small-town country scenes were filmed.
This film is the second one in which Alfre Woodard plays a single mother with a child who doesn't speak (The other film being Scrooged, 1988).