Review of:Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005)
by Denny Wayman and Hal Conklin
"Reprinted with permission by cinemainfocus.com"
Director:Darren Grant
Rating:PG-13 for drug content, thematic elements, crude sexual references and some violence.
Starring:Kimberly Elise, Steve Harris, Tyler Perry, Shemar Moore, Lisa Marcos
Life can often make us mad - not because we have an anger problem, but because we are often the victims of injustice, cruelty and sinfulness. The strength to overcome these injustices and abuses comes not only from having a supportive family but also by finding God’s grace to forgive and begin again. This is the lesson of Darren Grant’s film “Diary of a Mad Black Woman.”
Charles McCarter (Steve Harris) is an upwardly mobile African American who is achieving the “American Dream”. Having become the leading defense attorney in Atlanta, Charles and his wife Helen (Kimberly Elise) are not only living in a mansion of unparalleled splendor, but he is also honored by his profession for his achievements. With this accomplishment, however Charles decides to remove his wife of eighteen years from his life and replace her with his mistress with whom he has two illegitimate children.
This decision devastates his naïve and faithful Christian wife who has done nothing but care for him and endure his increasing abuse. But when she returns to her family out of desperation, the family from whom Charles had isolated her throughout their marriage, she is given two sources of help. From her gun-toting grandmother Madea (played by the author Tyler Perry), she is told to get mad and get even. From her faithful Christian mother Myrtle (Cicely Tyson), she is taught to forgive and be free. Both responses fuel this uneven comedy that weaves together a tragic situation and a Christian solution with often inappropriate humor.
The primary resolution of the anger that Helen feels comes from the healing effects of the gentle love she experiences from a of an moral and sexually pure Christian man named Orlando (Shemar Moore). Having serendipitously been the driver of the U-Haul Charles had hired to take away Helen’s possessions from their home the night he physically forced her to leave, Orlando saw Helen in all of her angry pain. But having the eyes of faith, he also began to see the woman she was beneath that rage.
This is often the way healing comes. Through seemingly accidental meetings and a series of apparently random events, we can nevertheless look back and see the hand of God at work in our lives. In our lowest moments, if we have the eyes to see, God’s care is there.
Discovering what loving respect is from a man for the first time in her life, Helen is quickly swept off her feet and falls in love with Orlando. In a poetic expression of the power of Christian love, she explains that the night they fell in love, though both wanted to consummate their desires with sex, Orlando “instead gave us intimacy.”
Through a sudden twist of events when Charles unexpectedly comes under Helen’s power she is given the opportunity to take out her revenge upon her abusive husband. At first, her anger overtakes her. But listening to her mother’s wise counsel and the sermons of her pastor, the path of revenge that so often multiplies evil into mutual abuse takes a healing turn.
The film’s weaving together of faith and life is refreshing. Without being preachy, and with a bawdy humor that balances the seriousness of the topics and religious messages, Perry presents a moral tale. The story is elevated not only by enjoyable gospel music but also by a proclamation of the power of God to heal us from addictions, abusive behaviors, angry revenge and powerlessness. This is a message that can deliver us all from being mad at life.
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