Madea's Family Reunion (2006)
Directed by Tyler Perry
Written by Tyler Perry
Starring Tyler Perry, Blair Underwood, Lynn Whitfield, Boris Kodjoe
Release Date February 24th, 2006
Published February 25th, 2006
One of the most memorable moments of my critical career was a conversation with a colleague about how I got sucked in by Tyler Perry's drag queen melodrama Diary Of A Mad Black Woman. While my fellow critic stared through me as if I did not have a head, I recounted that I was taken with Perry's broad comedy and earnest social concerns.
My colleague was, to say the least, not of the same mind regarding Diary of a Mad Black Woman. She could not get past Perry's bizarre drag-queen grandma, who she felt was even less convincing than Martin Lawrence's big momma. I would compare Madea more realistically to basketball star Larry Johnson's Grandmama commercial character in terms of believability, but I was willing to look past the bizarre drag queen escapade and allowed myself to be sucked in by the film's good intentions and big heart.
A similar feeling overtook me a few times during Perry's new film, Madea's Family Reunion. Unfortunately, those good feelings were less frequent as Family Reunion breaks down too often into pure melodrama and forgets to mix in the broad comic persona of Madea who, despite her appearance, was a reliable comic foil in Diary of A Mad Black Woman. In Family Reunion Madea is too often on the sidelines and in the scenes she's not in, she is missed.
Though Tyler Perry's Madea character is the star in title, the film's two lead performers are Madea's troubled nieces Lisa (Rochelle Aytes) and Vanessa (Lisa Arindell Anderson). Lisa is engaged to an abusive lawyer, Carlos (Blair Underwood), who made her his object of obsession at the behest of her own social-climbing mother Victoria (Lynn Whitfield), who sees the marriage as a boon to her flagging social standing.
Poor Vanessa is estranged from Victoria and has moved with her two children into Madea's welcoming home. She has a tentative romance with a bus driver, Frankie (Boris Kodjoe), who has a child of his own and a strict faith in God. He's also an elegant artist who values Vanessa's talent as a poet. It's a romance almost too good to be true that is nearly undone by dark family secrets that keep Vanessa from getting too close to the earnest and loving Frankie.
The film is not content, however, with these two highly melodramatic storylines. Perry, who wrote and directed the picture, cannot help tossing in snippets of his Christian values and an uplifting pair of monologues from the majestic Maya Angelou and the legendary Cicely Tyson. In a pair of speeches bemoaning the lack of manners, good taste and pride in the modern african-american community, these two elegant voices of reason address the family reunion on the virtues of faith, love and self respect.
These are admirable moments, but they are out of place. They are tacked on and distract from the main storylines. The speeches, no matter how well delivered, suck the air out of the room and leave the once boisterous, occasionally cheesy, and over-the-top film gasping. Most egregiously these scenes do not involve Madea, whose homespun politically-incorrect wisdom might have avoided the burdensome weightiness of the speeches.
In fact most of the film longs for more Madea. The main storyline involving Lisa, Vanessa and Victoria flies off the handle and into Dynasty-style kitsch melodrama. Whitfield especially vamps like Joan Collins and bullies her way through scenes like a Joan Crawford impersonator screaming for wire hangers. The plot twists are wildly dramatic with each of the sisters suffering in Jovian proportions their harridan mother's abusive past and present.
These scenes cry out for Madea to take the edge off with her sharp insults and 'get over it or I'll slap it out of you' style. Madea is outsized and unbelievable, but Perry makes her the funniest and by far most compelling character in the film. This is not vanity either. Perry gives his actors ample room to establish themselves apart from Madea but no one, aside from Whitfield's camp villainess, is able to take the reins and make the picture their own.
It is bizarre to think that Madea's Family Reunion needed more of Perry's drag queen grandmother but the fact is that the film's one true virtue is Madea's broad comic presence. Every scene that Madea is not the center of, you search for her. During the ponderous speechifying she is spotted in the crowd but does not speak. As each of the sisters' stories unfold Madea is consulted, but unlike Diary which brought Madea into the action as the heroine's violent protector, Family Reunion only allows Madea the occasional consultation.
You wait to see Madea open up a can of sassy whoopass on either Underwood's pompous abuser or Whitfield's witchy mother, but it never happens. Instead, Perry tries to rely on his young actresses to carry the day and neither Aytes or Anderson steps into the limelight.
The film's most entertaining moments are, like it or not, Madea's. A storyline that is sadly discarded, quite early in the film, has Madea assigned as the foster mother to a troubled runaway played by Keke Parker. As the rebellious child attempts to show Madea who's boss, the matronly Madea turns things around quickly with a swift backhand and, later, her belt. This sounds more controversial than it is. Madea is a caring foster mother who turns the child's life around with her old-school brand of tough love.
The scenes with Madea and the child are too few but they crackle with vitality, humor, warmth and justice. Madea is hardcore, but that is what we love about her. She is the parent as raging id, indulging the kind of freewheeling discipline that many parents grew up with in their own homes, but had drilled out of them in the age of Dr. Spock and, now, Dr. Phil. In Madea's world a spank and a hug are not too far apart in showing a child you care. Her approach is refreshing.
Madea's Family Reunion lacks the spark and originality of Diary Of A Mad Black Woman but ,most of all, it lacks Madea. I am almost embarrassed to admit it, but once again Tyler Perry managed to charm me with his good-hearted drag performance. Campy, kitschy, borderline ludicrous--I cannot help but enjoy Madea's outsize personality and heart.
If the film was more Madea and less the road show of Dynasty, I could give this film a hearty recommendation. As it is, Madea's Family Reunion is a good-natured but highly flawed melodrama, sprinkled with big laughs, but lacking a true center.
