The delivery of Tyler Perry's Madea movies has always been a little off balance. The new one begins with a comic moment of Perry's outspoken Great Aunt drag matriarch persona Madea telling a woman at a shop that she's too old and fat to be purchasing lingerie. An hour later, Madea is delivering a message that people should always treat each other with kindness. She's very politically savvy.
A Madea Christmas is full of this two-faced approach, and there's never been much option but to get used to it. This is a series where comedy that "doesn't mean it" co-exists with melodrama so earnest it's almost patronizing. Perry has been at this game for a long time, and though A Madea Christmas has received his harshest reviews yet, it's worth noting that the earlier ones were mostly reviewed disingenuously by critics who didn't feel right analyzing religious-heavy "black movies" with anything but a nod of acceptance. At this point, they're fed up with Madea. Which isn't fair because as Perry's movies go, this one's among the most entertaining.
The usual problems are here. Perry's direction is still tied to his stage play origins, over-reliant on stationary televisual head-shots, while the image itself always appears about to slip out of focus. There's little rhythmic momentum in the length and organization of scenes. And resolve mostly happens through Madea delivering speeches on humanity, at least in cases when there's no church choir in town. But the Madea movies play to emotional realization even when those truths are intellectually obvious. The streamlining of the comedy feels organic here, when even the extremely silly Madea Goes to Jail could get bogged down in heavy-handed soap opera.
For the holidays, Madea travels with her co-worker friend Eileen (Anna Maria Horsford) to a farm in rural Alabama. That's where Eileen's schoolteacher daughter Lacey (Tika Sumptor) lives, and is secretly married to caucasian farmer Conner (Eric Lively). Kathy Najimy and Larry the Cable Guy show up as Conner's parents, and bond with Madea over their shared down-home big-hearted political incorrectness. The movie becomes an argument of acceptance for interracial marriage, culminating in a gender and race-reversal of the burning car rescue scene from Crash.
Earlier, Madea (working as a substitute teacher) deals with a prepubescent bully by hanging her to a cross with Christmas lights.
A Madea Christmas has social liberalism in its heart. You're just required to bow to tradition to get there.
Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas and The Meaning of Christmas
This is one of those Christmas movies that could just as easily have been set in July. It's the time of year to open one's heart to people, and learn big lessons, but let's not pretend that's a different strategy than in all of Perry's other movies. This time he uses animated snowflake and tree ornament scene transitions to keep the festive spirit going.
It's also about the power of acceptance and of family, and about organizing a Christmas jamboree. Really, you can learn about those things at any time of year, and can end your movie on a spelling bee if need be. It just so happens that this movie works better than most of Perry's, and that feels like Christmas.
No comments:
Post a Comment