I could say that this movie sucks, but that wouldn’t be accurate. It is more like, these movies suck, because essentially Tyler Perry’s ‘Diary of a Mad Black Woman‘ is eight very different bad movies that seem to weave in between each other paying no mind to coherence or tone.

It is no coincidence that the commercials and press for ‘Diary’ are as schizophrenic as the source, simultaneously pushing a gripping drama about a black woman done wrong and the comic antics of the gun toting, sass-factory Grandma. What they leave out are the rest of the genres tackled by Perry (who wrote both the screenplay and the stage plays that the film is based on) and director Darren Grant. The audience is also treated to a trite and rushed ‘finding new love’ plotline, two R & B videos, an addiction recovery tale, a Joan Osborne cover, a drug related street drama and (my favorite) a protracted series of scenes where a recently handicapped man is broken down physically and emotionally to the point of tears and near drowning.

As you can imagine, any of these alone might have still come off half-baked if spun into their own film, but at least they would have had a chance.

The eight-plot pileup, as it turns out, is also no coincidence. Perry, who has triumphantly gone from quasi-homeless to southern theater king in a short seven years, according to his Web site, has written and performed eight different shows to rave reviews and standing room only crowds within that time. Several revolve around the Grandma Madea character but the saggy-boob’d one liner queen is not in the theater version of Diary. It seems as if his biggest mistake was opting to pack in all of his trademark characters into this film adaptation instead of letting them stand on their own.

There are some bright spots. Steve Harris is convincing as the cold and selfish husband who sets everything into motion by giving his wife of 18 years the boot for a younger woman on their anniversary. Perry is not bad in his roles as Medea and Brian, but ultimately they are just round pegs for square holes along with the rest of this confused and misguided movie.

The titular diary also serves as crutch for first-time director Grant who uses the voiceovers to tell the audience the small moments of healing and strength that need to be demonstrated on screen to be truly effective. Instead, all we get is narration, the aforementioned R&B montages and sometimes even a little of both at the same time.

I give this movie one-and-a-half stars for two reasons. It gets the half because if you untwist the wreckage I am sure you can find one, maybe two, decent films buried underneath; it gets the star for the torture scenes. Aside from being the only time in the film where this mad black women really releases some rage it is also the only unpredictable element in the entire two hour-plus running time.

This is the kind of relationship inspired cruelty that would make Uma Thurman’s ‘The Bride’ blush. But then again, I guess that revenge is a dish best served with your newly paralyzed ex-husband gasping for air in a recessed bathtub.

Published on February 25, 2005 at 12:00 pm