Tyler Perry is a fascinating case study. Despite constant critical dismissal, he’s one of the most successful filmmakers in America, consistently working with mid-range budgets but managing to gross more than $1 billion. His fan base is one Hollywood routinely ignores—chiefly Black, Christian women—and Perry makes his films with his proud Christian values at the forefront. That critical brush-off, while often frustrating, will be back in full force for his latest film, Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black. It’s fully warranted. His first release for Prime Video—and the first of a four-film deal with Amazon—is atrocious.
Perry opens Divorce in the Black with one of his most outrageous scenes to date, which is saying a lot given he famously had Madea attack a fast-food worker in Madea’s Big Happy Family. A preacher (Richard Lawson) delivers a sermon at the funeral of one of the Bertran boys, a family of no-good miscreants, according to the minister. But his daughter, Ava (Meagan Good) is married to one of them, Dallas (Cory Hardrict). Things get so ugly that the Bertrans decide to leave the funeral, but they’re not leaving without the body. Sending everything into a tailspin, they remove their brother's corpse from the casket and take him home in the back of their truck. It’s poorly written, over-the-top schlock, but it's also wildly entertaining. Sadly, Divorce in the Black never gets close to this delirious camp again.
That opening is mostly a red herring, as Divorce in the Black is really about Megan and Dallas, whose marriage has been struggling. Ava is successful, loving, and supportive, but Dallas is a succubus that toils in misery. At dinner with their friends, he loudly announces his desire for a divorce, which sends Ava into a tailspin. Except Perry never shows Dallas as anything but beneath contempt, so it’s hard to get fully on board with Ava’s suffering, as it’s abundantly clear to everyone watching that Dallas is terrible, and that Ava getting divorced is unmistakably a very good thing.
