My lovely wife and I went out this weekend on a little date. During said date, we went to the movies and saw Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls.
I have to admit having a few reservations about going to see a Tyler Perry movie. If you don’t recognize the name, he is the cat with the Madea character featured in Diary of a Mad Black Woman and scores of other melodramas all written and directed and starred in by him. I also have to admit to finding the Madea character absolutely noxious. Just as I don’t like Martin Lawrence’s Big Momma character or Eddy Murphy’s Mama Klump character. They all end up being these big balls of stereotypes that completely turn me off. And because they are just a jumble of stereotypes, they don’t ever achieve any real depth because they can’t get past the limitations of those stereotypes.
All that was to say that the name Tyler Perry automatically induces a cringe in me.
Daddy’s Little Girls was an excellent movie. And Tyler Perry himself was nowhere to be seen. Well written, well acted and well directed.
A quick synopsis of the movie: A single, lower class father is trying his best to raise 3 girls and make something of himself, despite the hardships of near poverty and the mother of his daughters being a drug dealing crazy woman. During this struggle he meets a rich, powerful woman lawyer and they fall in love.
It touches on subjects that are often ignored in mainstream media: hardworking Black men who care for their kids, self-reliance of Black communities, and class differences in the Black community.
It is a well-constructed movie with no wasted parts that I can recall. I highly recommend it.