REVIEW: The Single Moms Club

Starting in 2006 and running all of the way until The Single Moms Club came out in 2014, Tyler Perry had not had a movie open up to less than $10 million in the opening weekend.  That's fourteen consecutive movies that that broke the double digit millions barrier, which is a hell of an accomplishment.  During that time, his lowest grossing film was Daddy's Little Girls, which made $31 million.  Nine of the movies made over $50 million domestically.  He was a 'can't miss' talent in an industry that was seeing name value have less and less sway in success.

And then The Single Mom's Club came along, making $8 million and finishing at $15.9 million domestically.  It is his only film ever to do so poorly, the only financial blemish on his career.  What ended up happening to cause this?  It could be that it was because his popular Madea character was not in it, but he had other films succeed without her.  It's not because of the critical reception, as his films generally aren't that well accepted by the keyboard warrior defenders of cinema interpretation.  To be honest, I'm not sure what caused it's dismal perforce.  I can say, however, that I would not have been one to pay money for it.

I should be honest right from the beginning and state that I thought the casting in this movie was very much its strong suit.  Nia Long had the abilities to portray May, a strong mother and ambitious writer.  Wendy McLendon-Covey was able to be a stuck-up white woman who couldn't break from battling for a rung on the corporate ladder.  Sadly, I found her funniest material in the out takes during the end credits.  Playing Hilary was Amy Smart, a newly separated woman who was out of her league dealing with a child and an infant.  Zulay Henao was Esperanza, a woman caught between her controlling ex-husband and a sexy boyfriend that she couldn't fully commit to.  Cocoa Brown brought probably the best performance as Lytia, a woman with a tough life who doesn't want to see her son turn into a criminal like his brothers did.  You also have a decent performance from Tyler Perry as TK.  He is able to do a great job playing a calm and playfully flirtatious TK.  Throw in Terry Crews, who I think is almost always a lot of fun, and you have a well rounded cast.

But this brings us to the biggest problem of the film.  While the casting is quite good, the characters that are written do not develop very far, and they can be incredibly one dimensional.  They play as stereotypes and caricatures.  It is difficult to relate to them or feel bad.  Hilary is having a really tough time because she can no longer afford the hired help that did all of the mothering work, leaving her to take care of two kids, in an enormous house, while still not having to worry about working.  I feel bad for her.  Such a tough life.  You also have Esperanza who won't commit to her boyfriend because she is worried her ex-husband won't give her as much money.  This wouldn't leave her broke.  It would, however, mean that she couldn't live the lavish lifestyle that she was used to.  Another character that my heart weeps for.  I have no idea how these people, with no financial responsibilities, living in immaculate accommodations get out of bed every day.

We have a hard time connecting with these characters.  They don't represent the audience for the most part.  The only person who we do see as being realistic with actual problems is Lytia.  The rest of them are fake with first world problems.  It is hard to feel sorry for someone who still is living a storey book life.  It reminded me of The Vow, in which you had a 'financially struggling' couple who was somehow living in the nicest, trendiest accommodations you could find.

As the story moves along, we see these women, who are kind of rude to each other at first, instantly bond within a matter of one page of script.  Where the heck did this come from?  It happens so quickly and without any realism.  That's how most of the movie works.  It is unnatural and jolts along.  It takes these unsympathetic characters who are no grounded in the real world and pushes them along in ways that are forced and not as funny as the movie would have us believe.

It really is a shame.  I think there was some really solid acting talent that was brought in for this.  It could have been an extremely funny movie with distinct, rich characters.  But the script made sure that would not happen.  It took any potential the film had and pushed it down, taking any and all energy with it.  The sad thing is that with this movie, we gain an understanding of what could have worked, and are left wondering why we did not get that.

Rating - 2 out of 4 stars

REVIEW: The Perfect Man

It's been a while.  Too long, I would say.  Lots of great movies have come and gone since last I wrote, and, unfortunately, lots of horrendous films have also been seen in that time.  I think part of why I have not written on the blog in so long is because I knew that the next time I did it would be to review The Perfect Man, a movie that was chosen for me to watch and review by my podcast co-host, Christopher Spicer, as punishment for me losing our annual summer box office challenge.  It is now tradition that I lose, and I imagine that I will lose again in this upcoming season.

So, the movie that I am indeed here to talk about is the Hilary Duff star vehicle from 2005, The Perfect Man.  The premise for this film is that Duff's mother Jean, played by Heather Locklear (who was in the news today for some not so flattering reasons) picks up and moves her family every time she has a relationship fall apart, which we learn is quite often.  Not wanting to move again, Holly (Duff's character) decides it is best to toy with her mother's emotions by creating a secret admirer for Jean that Holly believes to be the perfect man.  This concept of what a perfect man would be is based off of the uncle of her new Brooklyn friend, with one of the most destructive and mind wilting forced Brooklyn accents.

Based off of simplistic and superficial advice from the uncle Ben, who is played by Chris North (who may be recognized by some as Mr. Big from Sex and the City), Holly sends her mother a flower and a letter.  The letter sounds like it came from a stalker, but these two creepy gestures end up captivating Jean's mind, showing just how easy it is to sweep a one dimensional character like her off her feet.  While a normal Earth woman would be sceptical of unwanted attention from a mystery man who knows her name, knows where she works, and knows where she lives, Jean is caught up in the idea.

I do want to mention that Chris North isn't bad in this role.  I like him.  He plays down to Earth charmers really well.  He was something that I didn't mind in Sex and the City.  The problem is that his character is forced to become something completely unbelievable.  I won't get into the finale of the movie, but it is against what rational human beings would do.

As the movie progresses, Holly comes to believe that uncle Ben himself is the perfect man and that he must get together with her mother because the have so much in common and they are perfect for each other.  Do you want the list of all the shit that they have in common that makes them ideal soul mates?  Well, first of all, they both do the crossword in pen.  If that doesn't say 'together forever' I don't know what would.  Secondly, and this is literally in the movie, they both believe that the moon is more than a large rock.  Yep.  And what's better, uncle Ben never says a damned thing about his thoughts on the moon, it is just what Holly believes he would say.  So there we have the understanding of why we should root for this couple.  Crosswords, and thoughts on the moon, which actually are not shared by both characters.

This film is a mess.  It does not know what it is doing.  It is out to lunch and clueless.  Need another example?  When Holly finds out that her mother is going to be at the restaurant that Ben owns (which is a problem because she sent a picture of Ben to her to believe it came from the perfect man) she knows that the whole thing could fall apart if her mother sees Ben.  So, the plan... her friend (the Brooklyn girl with an accent that you would think was done by an inebriated, recently waterboarded, Jimmy Carr who is waiting for the effects of panther tranquilizer to wear off) would go to the restaurant to keep them from seeing each other, and Holly would go to his apartment.  Weird, eh?  You would think that the girl would go to her uncle's and Holly would go to where her mom is.  Whatever.  It leads to a scene with Holly alone with this man, in his apartment, explaining to him about peer pressure on a teenage girl and how there were things that she didn't want to do and some things that she did want to do.  She also shares with him about getting a tattoo that would only be visible if her pants were down, or something like that.  This is a conversation that may try to be funny, but doesn't really understand how creepy this conversation is.  It is painful.

Don't watch this movie.  It is about a manipulative, lying daughter who treats her mother like a puppet in a movie that doesn't understand that what she is doing is incredibly insensitive.  It is like Irreplaceable You in the fact that it doesn't realize that people who try to orchestrate the emotions of others are jerks.  I do wish there was one thing that I could point to as a reason to see this film, but there seems to be no such thing.

Rating - 0.5 out of 4 stars

PS - I didn't proofread this review.  I didn't want to return to it.  I am severing all connections to The Perfect Man.  Life is too short to focus on this movie for any longer.