Review of Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005) by Steve P — 13 Jul 2012

Diary of a Mad Black Woman's immediate problem is that it tries so hard to assemble movie themes and ideas taken from all over the grid that the end result feels like each act was snatched from several different screenplays. The inclusion of the infamous grandmother, Madea, played in drag by Tyler Perry, is one of the film's prominent complaints. While occasionally giving us a goofball laugh, she disrupts the emotional sympathy the film wants to provide its audience with, and her brash, unapologetic crudeness, at times, becomes strictly unbearable.

We are met with Helen (Elise), who on the eve of her eighteen year of marriage, is thrown out of the house by her husband Charles (Harris) who reveals that he has been cheating on her with his mistress and has two children with her. Charles throws her in the presence of Orlando (Moore), a well-meaning man who will drive her to where she wants, but she quickly throws him out of his own car to head over to her grandmother's house. Helen's grandmother is Madea (Perry), whose first response to everything bad is pulling out a gun and threatening to fire shots or unjustly doing so. She lives with her brother Joe (Perry, again), who seems to have picked up on her manner of ignorance and foulness and agree with it shamelessly.

Helen is struggling to get her life back on track, but winds up spending time with Orlando, and realizes that all men might not be so bad. Meanwhile, it is inevitable something very unfortunate will happen to Charles in perhaps a form of karmic revenge, leaving the door open for Helen to take action.

Tyler Perry is definitely located at the lower-end of the black filmmaker ladder. Rather than choosing to breed life into seemingly vacuous areas like the works of Spike Lee or the underrated John Singleton, Perry is more concerned with stereotyping and the uneven blend of sentiment and slapstick. There are times in Diary, where we have completely forgotten this psycho, gun-toting grandma even exists until she is forced back on screen in an attempt to squeeze some laughs out of a picture that doesn't call for any.

But the biggest flaw with the picture is the lack of cohesion within the narrative. It tries to accomplish too many things, and winds up combining them into a messy, disorganized piece that is tonally choppy and melodramatically basic. To name of all the things it wants to accomplish, it wants to be a slapstick comedy with two characters in unconvincing and unnecessary drag, have a depressing yet somewhat uninteresting divorce setup between a couple we can't really believe held it out for eighteen long years, get a new romance off to a start, have a devout continuous Christian agenda applied in a heavy-handed and sometimes cloying manner like a Television movie for TBN, include a virtually unbelievable, far-fetched tale of drug life, and finally, is mixed with the depth and originality of a barren, repeated soap opera fit for the daytime lineup on NBC. But because the film is so indecisive and distracted, it can't pull off any of its goals to their full potential.

And then again, maybe I'm missing the point. Perry's plays have garnered overnight fame, as well as his name being associated with sentimental and relatable qualities (quite possibly a major part in their success), if occasional silliness. Unfortunately, Diary of a Mad Black Woman is overlong, plagued by potentially emotional scenes utterly drained when punctuated by scenes of the limitless grandmother, and resembles all too neatly how calamity can be turned into grand opportunity.

Starring: Kimberly Elise, Tyler Perry, Steve Harris, Shemar Moore, Tamara Taylor, Tiffany Evans, and Cicely Tyson. Directed by: Darren Grant.