It is almost a national pastime at this point to review a Tyler Perry movie that, shockingly, isn’t very good. One of the great advents of the streaming era, is that his schlocky nonsense is headed directly to various streamers. this is his second film this year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he pushed out a third. So, what’s up with Divorce In The Black?
Meagan Goode unironically plays a woman trying to make her abusive partner love her, until he’s just finally had enough, and decides he wants a divorce. He’s a loser in every frame he’s in, so no one in the audience will care. However, when she takes some time to herself, she meets a man she used to know, who is all in the feels for her, but she isn’t ready. Not the right time. Except, it clearly is, and then her ex thinks she was cheating all along, he’s a psychopath, and this movie heads where you assume it will.
Corey Hardrict is a legendarily awful actor. He has one level, and that is to just be oddly creepy at all times for no apparent reason whatsoever. If a real life Amber Alert happened, I’d be like… did you check to see if Dallas from Divorce In The Black was around? And, you could argue, he is the bad guy, so isn’t that a good thing? I think you just have to experience what Hardrict brings to the role. It is a performance totally undirected, and I’m certain Tyler Perry could have found just about anyone else to play the role. Just call out to someone in Atlanta, and cast the first person who comes calling.
Meagan Goode is fine. She’s never been a deeply amazing actress, and in retrospect, she and Kelly Rowland should flip Perry movies this year because it is so odd to try and relate to the girlfriend of Jonathan Majors. I did like Joseph Lee Anderson, who does his romantic alternative role fine, and most of the supporting cast is OK.
But this opening scene. it will become the thing of legend. Even if you have no plans to watch the film, i encourage you to watch this absolute batshit crazy opening sequence. For a director who got to where he is off vaguely related Christian content, the opening scene is hilarious.
Much like mea Culpa, there are things here that work, but they are being dragged down by Perry’s inability to cast decent actors, and coherently finish a project in a way that would suggest he has any concept of what quality is.
What I Look For In The Audio Description: Well, it is a pretty basic description. There’s really very little sexual content to lean into, there’s not a lot of violence, everything is modern, we repeat several locations, and the cast, while technically larger, really only focuses heavily on arguably 7 characters, maybe as much as 10, depending on what your definition is.
What It Does: oddly, I notice that description for predominantly black cast films almost always have better audio description, because there is more character description in them. Even though this cast isn’t very diverse, it still opens up a lot of representation. I really enjoyed when Good goes home to her parents, and we get this technically unnecessary, but highly detailed description of her room, right down to the Will Smith poster on her wall. Sometimes, this description script really brings out some interesting tidbits, and for the few moments of fleeting tension, it manages to hold them well.
Final Thoughts: I try to go into each movie by Tyler Perry thinking “this will be the one”, and it never is. He’s made worse, certainly, as he continued to drive his misguided Medea into the ground, but he’s also made better than this. However, I’m pretty sure he’s never had a truly great film, and a billion dollars later, isn’t it about time Tyler Perry actually try and make something that isn’t the cinematic equivalent of content creation, and put something out there that shows all the haters he really does have the talent?
Final Grade: C-
