Review
DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN
Starring Kimberly Elise, Steve Harris and Shemar Moore
Directed by Darren Grant
Opens Friday, March 18
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In his introduction to the 2005 Oscar ceremony, Chris Rock complained of the low-grade films marketed towards black filmgoers over the course of the year. It’s a perfect segue to the release of Diary of a Mad Black Woman.
Much like last year’s Spike Lee travesty She Hate Me, Diary of a Mad Black Woman mistreats its audience much in the same way abusive husband Orlando (Steve Harris) brutalizes Helen (Kimberly Elise). Thrown out of her home by her asshole husband lawyer, stripped of her riches and forced to (gasp) go and get herself a job as a waitress, Elise pouts and sobs her way into the arms of Charles (Shemar Moore), all the while writing away in her diary about her new beau’s good Christian values and how nice a full day’s work actually feels.
Quite unsure what it wants to be – romantic revenge fantasy, hip-hop comedy or Love Actually Sucks (’Cept Fo’ The Love of Jesus Y’all) – Diary of a Mad Black Woman even shifts gears into Nutty Professor territory with a trio of characters portrayed by Tyler Perry. Besides having written this mess as a play several years before, Perry’s acting is so bad it’s almost a sick pleasure to watch entire segments of the film cuts between him as Madea (a gun-crazy 80-year-old ghetto grandmother), Joe (a white-bearded, wrinkly and horny great uncle) and Brian (a boy from the block done good – in this case, a snooze-inducing lawyer).
Thank goodness for the church – each and every obstacle in Diary of a Mad Black Woman gets solved during a climactic gospel session in which families are reunited, cripples walk again and junkies are shown the error of their ways (and can sing again, just like Whitney!). Sure, I’ll admit it – halfway through the film, I was desperate for Moore and Elise to get their kits off and just go at it. But instead, like all good Christians (cough, cough), despite how much they wanted to, Orlando and Helen simply hold one another until the sun comes up through the windows of Orlando’s surprisingly swank and Queer Eye-approved apartment. "We didn’t make love," she says in dewy voice-over, "but instead he gave me intimacy." At this point I think I blacked out for a few minutes and awoke as though from a terrible dream. Unfortunately that terrible dream continued for at least another hour.
Much of the blame lies with director Darren Grant, whose only previous credit is a season of Survivor on television. Grant’s timing, framing and altogether lack of control over his film take what could have been an intelligent and funny satire of the Bridget Jones phenomenon and throw it out the window in favour of cliché, stereotype and Christian lecturing. Still, given Perry’s flimsy foundation of a script, it’s hard to imagine how anyone ever thought this thing would make a cohesive film in the first place.
Damning Diary of a Mad Black Woman as purely a black-oriented film, however, does everyone a disservice. Grant and Perry have made a film lame-brained, shoddy and offensive enough to insult absolutely everyone who goes to see it. Congratulations guys – bridging cultures and racial boundaries by slinging enough crap for all. Diary of a Mad Black Woman: it’s about togetherness. |
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