Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005)
A glorious mess, "Diary of a Mad
Black Woman" is something like "Waiting to Exhale"
meets "Big Momma's
House" meets "The
Klumps" meets Spike Lee meets a movie version
of the TV show "Amen." What an amazing amalgam of
genres and ideas all splashed and splattered across
the screen and served up Southern fried. Sure, it
often comes completely apart at the seems, but it
still manages to interest the audience and keep us
entertained for nearly all of its running time. There's
something joyous and sweet-natured at the core of
the film.
By far the most entertaining part
of the film is the first real 20 minutes of the piece
when writer/producer and star Tyler Perry appears
as Madea, a large, older African-American woman with
a hilarious verve and the witty sneer to back it up.
Perry is phenomenal in this role negating anything
Martin Lawrence did in "Big Momma's House" and causing
the audience to roll on the floor with laughter. This
is good stuff, the kind of comedy that makes your
ribs ache.
Perry also appears as a regular
guy and an dirty-mouthed old disabled man in the film
giving his performance here a sort of Eddie Murphy-esque
"Klumps" feel to it. It's as if Perry wanted to prove
himself better than Murphy and Lawrence in one fell
swoop. He wrote and produced the film, so one assumes
he was allowed to have his way with his own casting.
It's too bad he tries so hard because his old lady
is far and away enough to make us like him. His regular
guy role is no better than the poor work we get from
actor Steve Harris ("The Practice") in the film. And
his old man is often funny but never reaches the hilarity
of the large old woman he portrays even with a funny
scene involving pot smoking to showcase his prowess
in the role.
But the film, a hodgepodge mess
if there ever was one, soon renounces this part of
the film to concentrate on its weakest points, namely
Kimberly Elise as a battered and abandoned high society
wife and her abusive and unlikeable husband, played
by the high-falutin Harris. Both of these actors are
awful in the film. Elise is just a boney dishrag who
emotes anger by screaming and essays hurt by turning
on the waterworks. And Harris is totally miscast,
unable to make his supposed millionaire lawyer little
more than the reverse- side, blackened cut-out of
his "ethical" lawyer on TV's "The Practice." Hired
here to be mean, cruel, vindictive and nasty, Harris
seems totally incapable of presenting any of these
qualities in anything less than a cartoonish manner.
When he has an eleventh-hour change of heart and seeks
redemption in the film's final reel, it seems as forced
and ridiculous as the script becomes by then.
And so to a certain degree one can't
really blame Harris for all his failures here because
everyone in the cast eventually fails when the film
turns from comedy to drama to musical to religious
film. Yep, by the end of the film, everyone is in
church singing Gospel music in that poppy, African-American
church choir style and seeking redemption and spiritual
forgiveness. This is all spearheaded by Cicely Tyson,
portraying Elise's ailing mother as a Bible-thumping
granny with a heart of gold and the patience of a
saint. (Suddenly we see why Elise was cast: She looks
somewhat like a young Tyson). But this strange shadow
of Christianity, which pokes into the film throughout
its running, seems forced and added in the proceedings,
as if religious people put money into the thing and
insisted on its inclusion.
Perry bites off a bit more than
his actors can chew but the script is, nonetheless,
interesting. Even his hackneyed device of using narration
in the form of a diary works well enough to support
the film's contents. And while he can be sentimental,
divisive, sappy and manipulative, his heart always
seems to be pretty much in the right place. It's hard
to blame him for wanting to entertain his audience
while providing some substance at the same time. Perry
is certainly a talent worth looking out for.
And while it may seem that I am
being kind of harsh here at times, the fact of the
matter is "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" is a decent
movie filled with enough fun, humor, romance, drama
and music to work for five such films. Perry is nothing
if not a crowd pleaser and this film should be a huge
hit, especially with the African-American community;
after all, it has everything and the kitchen sink
within its frames to delight the audience. And it
has Perry as the most hilarious seemingly straight
cross-dressing performer since Jack Lemmon in "Some
Like It Hot."
I saw "Diary of a Mad Black Woman"
at a sneak preview filled with African-Americans who
laughed, hooted, hollered, "awwwww"ed and talked to
the screen throughout its running. It was all I could
do not to shout out, "Oh No he di-n't" with the rest
of the girls in the crowd when Harris was acting a
creep. Do yourself a favor, make sure you see this
film in similar circumstances. The cultural flavor
of the film mixed with the reaction of the primary
audience it is designed for makes for one enjoyable
and delightful evening. And much of the humor and
spiritual substance transcends the cultural barrier
making this not just a "genre" movie, but a film with
as much flavor as the soul food dishes Madea serves
in the film.
Notes:
Directed by Darren Grant.
Perry has portrayed Madea in a couple
of plays which have also been videotaped for the consumer
market. This film is also based on one of Perry's
plays.
Filmed in Atlanta.
Viewed at a sneak preview in Austin
in February 2005.
