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MADEA IS A DRAG
MADEA'S FAMILY REUNION (PG-13) Criticizing
a Tyler Perry production is a tough proposition.
I hesitate to speak too harshly of a rare film,
targeted at African Americans, that steers dear
of gratuitous sex ana violence. Love Jones trod
this territory nearly 10 years ago, in a structure
more dnemarically sound than Perry's kitchen
sink melodrama, but found little audience. Then,*
a year ago, Perry's little film that could (conquer
the box office), Diary of a Mad Black Woman,
changed how Hollywood viewed films aimed
almost solely at a black audience. Since then,
Athens has heard The Gospel and been treated
to a film brought to us by the letter G. None
ascended to the heights reached by Perry, whose
expeditions are powered by a pistol-packing,
razor-tongued matriarch in a 64QQ bra named
Madea (that's Perry himself underneath the drag
trappings).
Madea's Family Reunion is little changed
from last year's Diary. Perry has taken over the
directing duties, but direction matters little to a
vast majority of the film that surrounds her with
the soapiest of operatic tragedy. Reunion is filled
with incestuous rape, abusive men, buppie art
ists, stolen trust funds, multiple single parents,
parentless children, and mothers so wicked that
no “step* is needed. The two most egregious
abusers of the audience's dramatic trust are
Vanessa (Anderson), an abused character whose
motivations arrive too late to save her from
the histrionic scrapheap, and he t mother (Lynn
Whitfield), the unrepentant reason her daughter
cannot love a man. Saddled with pronounce
ments such as Tm celibate" and "I am not your
tragedy," Vanessa exemplifies the problem with
Perry's work, each of which opens a can of emo
tional whoop-ass, but then pulls its punches with
laughably serious dialogue that is both obvious
and stilted. Anderson's lack of thespian chops is
no help, but even Whitfield, a fantastic actress
who first gained my attention with her award
winning 1991 portrayal of Josephine Baker, has
trouble molding someone three-dimensional from
Rochelle Aytes. Tyler Perry and Lisa Arnndell Anderson
Madea production. Hunky Shemar Moore has been
replaced by hunkier look-alike Boris Kodjoe (The
Gospel). Classy Cicely Tyson gets an assist from
America's poet. Maya Angelou, as she returns to
ensure the younger generations wise up. Sadly
though, the talented Kimberly Elise is missing
as her Helen is no longer mad. Her replacements
(it takes two), Rochelle Aytes and Lisa Arrindell
Anderson, simply can't match Elise's strength and
beauty. Alas, the near painful shifts in tone that
mark all of Perry's work plague his latest film as
well Faster than Diary. Reunion goes from broad
est comedy to sappiest drama in a mere second.
Yet I find myself charmed by Maple "Madea"
Simmons. Anytime Perry dons the grey wig and
glasses, frosts his eyebrows, and adopts that lilt
ing, near musical cadence to cheerfully exclaim.
"Heller," the laughter becomes uncontainable.
Farcical and brilliant, Madea is a caricature that,
embracing stereotypes of race and age, tackles
issues with brute comedic force. Truly old-school,
Madea is polite when she should be (i.e. with
company) and almost physically opinionated
when she has to be. Her sense of authority is
built upon God (though she seems oddly irre
ligious in contrast to Perry's other characters),
respect (earned) and family (extended). Having
broken the law time and again—including her
house arrest from the previous film—M idea
recognizes no authority that she finds at odds
with her own needs. She is in her 60s, and, like
many elders, believes she deserves to have what
she wants. Still, she will fight tooth-and-nail
for her family (and sometimes with her family,
strictly adhering to that whole "spare the rod,
spoil the child" adage). Unfortunately, Madea
does not an entire film make, and Perry fills the
Perry's mono-faceted characterizations. However,
the fiery scene between Whitfield's black widow
Victoria and her daughter's sociopathic fiance
Carlos (Blair Underwood, again cast as the Dark
Side of Denzel), has the makings of an astound
ing daily soap, a venture BET might want to look
into before Ptny ejets too big for TV.
I know I shouldn't have expected any story
telling evolution from Perry. What isn't broken
needs no fixing. Nonetheless, the uber-hyphen-
ate (writer-director-actor-producer-playwright-
composer) commits the same dramatic evils
in Reunion that he did in his first feature. No
matter the stratospheric popularity Perry has
achieved seemingly overnight, his audience will
remain a segregated one, by religion and by
race, until he escapes the dramatic straitjacket
in which he has dressed himself. With his en
ergy, quicksilver wit and bravura voice. Perry
could achieve widespread fame in a variety of
media. His Big Momma has much more to say
than Martin Lawrence's, and Perry's portrayal of
Madea's grumpy brother easily out-Klumps any
one in Eddie Murphy's fictional clan. However,
so long as Perry is happy retelling the same
dysfunctional family story over and again, he
has no reason to grow. But Madea has a gleam in
her eye that suggests she is destined for bigger,
better things. I suggest Perry dump the crusty
theatrical song and dance and find a pathos in
Madea to match her giant humorous assets. The
ill-fashioned Madea's Family Reunion isn't irre
deemable; like its talented creator, it just lacks
focus. Once Peny finds his, the phenomenon that
is Madea could actually become phenomenal
Drew Wheeler
16 FLAGPOLE.COM • MARCH 1,2006