When you think of Tyler Perry you think of complicated fun, but in this case, Tyler Perry studios (yes, he owns his own studio) tackles a film that begins like Devil Wears Prada and ends up like Richard Gere and Diane Lane’s Unfaithful .
Judith (Jurnee Smolett-Bell) is a backwoods girl raised by her Preacher Momma and madly in love with Brice (Lance Gross) the boy next door. They’ve been together since they were six years old. Thirteen years of friendship, they grow up to marry and now they’ve been blissfully wed for six. That is until Judith takes a position at a Dating Agency as their analyst since she has a Master’s Degree but doesn’t have the funding to start her own therapy office.
Janice (Vanessa Williams) is the agency owner (a generic Anna Wintour) and Ava (Kim Kardashian) is her second in command (sort of a Emily Blunt in Prada) which makes our heroine, Judith, the mousey Anna Hathaway role. Enter Harley (Robbie Jones) the Zuckerberg of financial planning who wants to partner into the company as well as seduce Judith. Kardashian – all about material things in this film – ridicules everything Judith does with lines like “A degree on the wall without labels on your back means nothing.”
On the other side of town, Judith’s husband Brice is a pharmacist and the pretty new girl, Melinda (Brandy Norwood) is scared of her own shadow. We know something is up and it’s about halfway through the film we figure out the obvious ‘secret.’
The movie compares animal magnetism to endearing long-term romance, reminding us that humans stray as a result of needing to feel appreciated since we often take our mates for granted.
The problem with the film is that the film moves from light to melodramatic. While one might think Kardashian is the most annoying thing in the movie, it turns out instead, we tire of Harley’s seduction of Judith and of Judith’s moping between the two men. ♛ ♛ Two tiaras