Why Did I Get Married? (2007)

While I have been vocal about the limits I feel Tyler Perry places on himself as a filmmaker and cinematic thinker, I can't say that I didn't enjoy WHY DID I GET MARRIED? for what it was. And "what it was" amounted to what turns out to be Perry's most subtle blend of humor and melodrama in another of his TV-movie-of-the-week-style films.

You get the sense when you watch any of Perry's films that his clout alone gets these Lifetime movies onto the big screen, when it makes more sense that Perry should just function as the CEO of his own television network that would air his sitcoms and his films. (Maybe that's already happened or it's in the works?)

Perry does little to break from his formula with WHY DID I GET MARRIED?, though the outrageousness is definitely toned down in the absence of Madea, the typical Perry film foil.

Sadly, however, it's Perry's moments of broad comedy that I personally like the best. I could do without the ridiculous, over-the-top melodrama of every Perry film, where no couple is without horrible secrets, no marriage is monogamous, and no blatant sinner is without a hypocritical sermon to preach to his/her friends. So naturally, I gravitated toward Tasha Smith, who plays a loud-mouthed drunk wife named Angela and walked away with this film's best comedic moments. Angela is your stereotypical "oh no, you dih-int!" characacture of an unmanagable, speaks-her-mind-despite-the-consequences black woman, and Perry uses her alcoholism to explain or excuse the behavior. Regardless, she was a riot.

The rest of the cast, I have to say, was solid. Janet Jackson gets the stoic role and is conspicuously tame except for her one big scene of confession (Perry gives every actor a scene like this, and that's part of the problem with his movies.) Jill Scott is fantastic as an overweight wife who is in denial about her marriage and is eventually brought into the light. Most of the male actors were interchangeable -- most behaved in a similar, often neanderthal-ish manner and came alive when in scenes without the women, who dominated the stories and the film as a whole.

In ranking WHY DID I GET MARRIED? among Perry's works, this definitely belongs in the top half, though I have not scene all of his films. I suppose it is a more solid attempt at something that could succeed outside of the black community. Certainly, its subject matter is universal, though Perry always flavors it with his worldview, which is certainly his prerogative.

In short, WHY DID I GET MARRIED? is a perfectly entertaining two hours as it airs on cable film channels. TV is where his stuff seems to belong and where it probably works best, anyway.

2.5 out of 4