Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
It’s that time again in African America when the words “written, directed and produced by Tyler Perry” are flashing across millions of television screens, setting off a few days of discourse about the quality of Black cinema and the responsibility of Tyler Perry, two conversations most of us are completely over. The latest reason for the season is “Divorce in the Black,” a relationship-film-turned-thriller with some really solid acting work courtesy of Meagan Good, Cory Hardrict, Debbi Morgan and Richard Lawson; Good, Hadrict and Lawson recently went through fairly high-profile divorces. That doesn’t matter here, but it almost feels like it has to be mentioned.
Look, let’s cut to the chase: “Divorce in the Black” is a pretty good movie. Short of feeling like it runs about 30 minutes too long, it’s a fine movie. Good plays Ava, who is married to Dallas Bertrand (Hardrict), her high school love. Ava and Dallas are from a small town about an hour and a half from Atlanta. Dallas, though, is a member of the Bertrand clan, the local family of criminals and folks that nobody seems to like, led by their mother, easily one of the least likable people in town. I don’t quite understand how Dallas and Ava ended up in love and eventually married, especially since neither Ava’s parents (played by Lawson and Morgan) nor Dallas’ mother approved of the union. How they made it through that storm is beyond me especially considering Dallas also seems like a pretty terrible human being. I think they want us to believe they had some good times, but even in the one story Ava shares about them, she points out how mean he was.
Let me say here the one thing this film struggles with is time and distance. In the movie, Ava is 37 and she and her best friend, Rona (played by the recently married Taylor Polidore-Williams from shows like “Snowfall” and “All American: Homecoming”), have known each other for 17 years, I guess meeting when Ava was 20. I only say I guess because there’s a scene where she and Rona are talking about old times, and it sounds like they were homies in high school. Stuff like that stands out more because the characters also shoot back and forth to the “small town” Ava and Dallas are from like it’s a suburb of Atlanta.
Anyway, my point is that Ava and Dallas don’t make much sense, especially since their families both significantly disapprove of one another. The opening scene of the film makes it CLEAR. Ava’s daddy, Clarence, is the local pastor, and he’s presiding over a funeral service for one of Dallas’ brothers who was shot to death while committing a crime. Clarence is chastising the whole family from the pulpit and, as you can imagine, they don’t like that. I’ll spare the details because you really need to see it fully to understand the ridiculousness, but it’s clear these families are not doing dinners together.
Point is, Dallas wants a divorce. Ava gives it to him, and then it turns into a thriller of sorts. If you’ve seen any other Tyler Perry movies (or any other movie, really) that revolves around a woman having to take her life and happiness back from a man who won’t let go; you can probably guess where this is going. But let me say despite having a pretty good idea of how this was going to end, the performances by Lawson (in particular) and Hardrict (he’s a great villain) made it a pretty fun ride. There are no discernible plotholes and no complete left turns that make you wish you hadn’t watched the rest of the film. It is a story you’ve seen before with some good performances. Short of the opening scene and how wild Dallas’ family is, there aren’t any significant times where you have to suspend reality to watch the movie. I do think it could have used a bank heist to spice things up a bit (Ava and Rona work at a bank; the heist plot was RIGHT THERE), but that’s just me being greedy I suppose.
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Are we turning a corner with Tyler Perry movies? I don’t know if he’s heard the criticisms and he’s trying harder or what. I doubt he cares about critics, but one of the things that made Tyler Perry’s movies so polarizing and worth all of the conversation was the foolishness and blatant disregard for reality. Perry has always shown a willingness to skip a few steps to get to the end, even if those steps were necessary to make the story make sense. Perry has now released three films in a row — “A Jazzman’s Blues,” “Mea Culpa,” “Divorce in the Black”) that aren’t bad. They’re not classic films like “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” or “The Family That Preys” or even “Why Did I Get Married?” but what films are, ya know?
I realize many people have a love-hate relationship with Tyler Perry’s films. I can be very critical of his catalog, but I also watch them all, and I definitely don’t hate his movies. I’ve been one of the people who has constantly asked for them to be better considering Perry’s vast resources. Maybe that’s where we’re headed because “Divorce in the Black” wasn’t bad. I watched it with my wife, and when it was over, we both said, “That wasn’t bad.”
I’ll be curious what the response to “Divorce in the Black” will be. Most of the conversation around Perry’s films is “Why aren’t they better?” or “What did you expect from Tyler Perry other than a bad movie?” Well, this is better, and it’s not a bad movie. Will I watch it again? Only time will tell. But “Divorce in the Black” is a good enough movie that maybe could have used a bank heist but is fine without it.
That’s saying something.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).
