DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN

A broken-hearted woman tries to rebound from her abusive husband in Tyler Perry’s DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN. Helen, played by Kimberly Elise, has just been kicked out of her home by her abusive, womanizing husband. Hoping to rebound from a tumultuous 18-year marriage, Helen goes to stay with her outlandish grandmother Madea, played by Tyler Perry. While she’s there, she learns more about her colorful family and meets the hunky Orlando, played by Shemar Moore.

What do you get when you mix a Lifetime melodrama with a dose of THE NUTTY PROFESSOR? The answer is one fine mess or as Tyler Perry would title it, DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN. The caricatures, not characters, play to the broadest reaches of human nature. Charles is the worst type of husband: greedy, selfish, egotistical and cruel. He brings new meaning to the word despicable, and Steve Harris brings justice to the poorly written character. Helen’s new man is the ideal: patient, giving, spiritually flawless, and just happens to look like a cross between a GQ model and a Chippendale’s dancer. The exaggerated characters stretch from one stereotype to the next, but reach a screeching halt when Madea and her crude brother Joe make their appearance. Perry wrote the screenplay, and the play it’s based on, but also stars as the bombastic, ridiculous and utterly unfunny Madea and Joe. I don’t doubt Perry’s intention of providing a religiously infused tale of perseverance and forgiveness, but the execution is thorough chaos.

Grade: D-