Posted: 03/06/2005

Diary of a Mad Black Woman

(2005)

by Kristin Schrader

Bring your ear protectors and prepare to be yelled at.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman is an odd combination of drama and drag. Not like in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, where the drag adds to the tension and plot of the film, more like… no, wait. Truly there has never been this particular combination of genres, and I think I might know why.

Helen, played by Kimberly Elise, lives in what we are to assume is a perfect world. Her husband Charles (Steve Harris) is a successful attorney and they have all the trappings of security and wealth. Helen is living the dream up until her husband cheats on her, and then goes so far as to evict her from the family home. He is a very bad man, there is no doubt about it. Helen’s life has been turned upside down and she winds up with her grandmother. This is where she will collect herself, and assess what her life has become.

Helen is forced to collect herself in a completely different movie.

This movie is a loud, clichéd, roar of a tale. A movie where the quiet Helen has somehow been spawned from the same line of people that produced her grandmother, Grandma Madea, played by Tyler Perry. Where on earth did this character come from? There is not one little bit of realism, and there is not another thing in Diary that indicates this might be coming or that calls fir it. Madea is giant, raving, and oh yes. A man. This turn of events is so distracting it is hard to keep one’s eyes on the plot prize. Helen meets another man who is nicer to her, Orlando (Shemar Moore) and makes some changes in her life. Helen’s husband also makes changes. Over and over the scene is set for this film to coalesce, but it never does.

Darren Grant directed one of the most disjointed films I have seen in a long time. There is no reason this film had to be so very implausible. There was every opportunity for a positive, learn to know yourself film, performed by actors perfectly capable of the task. Instead of capturing a family drama, this film is an unintentional mystery. Why did the husband cheat? Why did the wife not leave before she did? Why can’t every man be as sensitive as the moving man? Why is grandma a man? The distraction of crazy grandma and “huh?” incidents is too much to give this Diary any personal voice, and isn’t that what diaries are all about?

Kristin Schrader is our news columnist and staffer reporting from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com