Why Did I Get Married series

  • Why Did I Get Married Too? (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) I’m not going to be too hard on writer-director Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too?, because the film is slightly more aware of what it’s trying to do than its prequel. Picking up a few years after the previous film, this one once again sends four couples to a holiday destination (trading snowy Colorado for a Bahamas resort) where various secrets and resentments bubble up to the surface (again) and threaten their couples (again). Once more, the film only spends a fraction of its time at the holiday resort, and gets its characters back in their lives for the remainder of the film. Having been written for the screen, this sequel doesn’t have the same claim to theatrical space/time unity as the first film, and doesn’t spend as long at the secluded location—so the shift back to a multi-set approach isn’t as severe, even if it’s still clunky. Most of all, though, is that the characters are more sharply defined, with some of them clearly intended to be comic character. The ever-gorgeous Tasha Smith, for instance, plays a character clearly not meant to be on the same level of realism as the other couples, and her over-the-top screeching arguments with her husband (escalating to a very funny scene in which she shoots a gun in her own house) are played for laughs more than drama. The contrast between her fight scenes and other fight scenes rather works—although it does show Perry going back to his usual writing style, in which he can’t keep his tone consistent. Smith’s character clearly went from grating to amusing, though… which is more than I can say for other characters in the film. I was aghast, for instance, at Perry’s insistence on painting Janet Jackson’s character as a victim—for instance, in not splitting writing income equally even as her husband’s income is on the table (under Quebec law, she would clearly lose that claim). The film then does on to portray her becoming increasingly unhinged until a tragic death… for which she doesn’t even get blamed. In fact, the film hands her Dwayne Johnson as a surprise reward in the film’s last scene, which leaves a sour taste. Jackson gets both one very good glass-smashing scene and one very bad car-smashing one under that subplot, which is about par for the course in Perry’s uneven writing. Perry’s direction is also frustratingly inconsistent: He’s willing to go for two memorable one-shots, for instance, but unable to provide even a contextual medium shot during lengthy conversation scenes. And so it goes—some material is incredibly predictable, while other plot points seem to scream SURPRISE with a deliberate avoidance of foreshadowing, and one inexplainable appearance by a character from the previous film that makes no sense except as a screenwriter’s contrivance. The ending certainly feels far too convenient, sweeping under the rug a number of issues that should have been resolved in more organic ways. Why Did I Get Married Too? Is a slightly better film than its predecessor—buoyed by three years’ worth of additional cinematic experience for Perry, plus his entertainer’s instincts to give the fans what they’re expecting. It’s a bit of a shame for the characters that, by appearing in a sequel, they’re guaranteed to have a bad time—but that’s the movies.

  • Why Did I Get Married? (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Youtube Streaming, February 2022) There’s something admirable Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?, as it looks at factors threatening the marriage of four middle-class couples when they head to an isolated cabin to reflect on the state of their relationships. This is one of Perry’s first straight-up dramas without the Madea crutch, and there’s a sense that he’s really giving a serious go at romantic drama. Placing the four couples in the pressure-cooker of a mountain retreat right before a major snowstorm may not be an original plot device, but it has the merit of raising the film’s tension and promising a dramatic arc in the finest theatrical tradition. Unfortunately, Perry’s blunt-force approach does him no favour, and the problems start early on with four heavy-handed scenes that don’t present characterization as much as caricature. There’s no way to get emotionally invested in a couple whose husband is callous enough to make his overweight wife drive the trip he’s taking on a plane (while enjoying the company of her single attractive friend), or to completely believe in a character going on a verbal rampage aboard a crowded train. (There are also other issues whenever you ask yourself why four couples living close together would take four different ways to get to the same destination, but digging too deeply in the film does no one any favours.)  The writing is uneven, and few of the actors (including Perry in a dramatic turn) are gifted enough to rise above the material—except perhaps Jill Scott in the film’s richest character. The lack of subtlety means that much of the film plays like a dramatic exercise more than a story, and Tyler fumbles the last half of the film by having characters leave the cabin and time-skip forward to resolve (or not) their issues—breaking the spatial and chronological unity of the piece. The film’s got enough heart to warrant watching to the end, but it’s often a rough road—although that’s a near-constant for most Perry films even if you’re predisposed to like them.