Tyler Perry revisits one of his mothballed franchises with Why Did I Get Married Again? (now on Netflix), the third dramedy about a tangle of couples and their myriad marital difficulties. Perry once again writes, directs, produces and stars, reuniting the core ensemble (Jill Scott, Michael Jai White, Tasha Smith, Richard T. Jones, to name a few) and bringing Taraji P. Henson into the fold. Notably, this is one of a paltry three movies Perry directed this year, down from four last year, and is among a whopping 13 he’s helmed since 2020, when he began releasing all his films on Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. And as ever, the movie reflects his apparent quantity-over-quality philosophy.
The Gist: Any summation of Perry’s Marrieds inevitably becomes a long, long list of character and actor names, to accommodate all the reintroductions and introductions and inintroductions and outintroductions and unintroductions. And if reading it seems tedious, you haven’t sat through the first 40 minutes of this movie. Anyway: Angela (Smith) and Marcus (White) are still married despite their many infidelities. They live in a gigantic mansion (a product of “one of those investment opportunities,” and that’s as specific as a Perry script ever gets), to which they’ve invited all their friends to pre-celebrate their daughter Jasmine’s (Armani Greer) wedding to Wesley (Everett Osborne), the son of Roselyn (Henson), an old friend who’s a new character in these movies.
Among those old friends are familiar faces. Terry (Perry) and Dianne (Sharon Leal) are still married. Sheila (Scott) and Troy (Lamman Rucker) are still married. Sheila’s ex, Mike (Jones), turns up with a new wig and a much younger girlfriend, Regina (Sydney Winbush), who happens to be the ex of Angela and Marcus’ son, Marcus Jr. (Da’Vinchi). Other characters don’t matter that much, so let’s stop there. Drama ensues: Sheila and Dianne learn that Jasmine and Wesley are having problems and aren’t sure if they should keep that secret or tell Angela about it; troubling old infidelities bubble back to the surface; Roselyn has been secretly dating a much younger man. Comedy ensues: Mike’s wig is really bad; Mike’s new girlfriend is caught schtupping Marcus Jr.; Mike’s wig crawls up the back of his neck when he fails to bench press a zillion pounds. Will everyone get through this? The characters will, yes. But you? Well, you might doze off.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The Marrieds – 2007’s Why Did I Get Married? and 2010’s Why Did I Get Married Too?) all coagulate together into a big unmemorable wad of overbaked melodrama and tepid comedy. (At least Married Too? sticks in the brain thanks to Janet Jackson going HAM during a bonkers climax.)
Performance Worth Watching: Here’s your reminder that Henson is often extraordinary in the right project, and we can argue whether her place in Perry’s stable of actors (this is her fifth movie under his direction) ever gives her “the right project,” since he has her deliver lines like, “Isn’t it amazing in life, how there can be so much drama and beauty at the same time?”
Sex And Skin: One coitus interruptus moment, but it’s firmly within PG-13 parameters.
Our Take: Instead of once again lamenting Perry’s propensity for churning out one slapdash movie after another, perhaps we should praise him for being consistently slapdash. His wham-bam M.O. results in klutzy pacing, choppy editing, scripts laden with exposition, stories that tell us things instead of showing them and half-realized characters in desperate need of refinement. Subtlety and concision aren’t in Perry’s vocabulary as he recycles old plots with slight variations and arranges a tedious grab-bag of blowouts, breakups, blowups and breakouts.
Perry structures Married Again as a 15-character pileup during a bloated opening salvo, followed by a slight untangling of them, then a retangling as they’re forced into melodramatic situations (usually involving secrets and dum-dum-dummmm! revelations), then an interminable final-act sequence in which the entire ensemble stands in a circle and takes turns giving speeches, explaining themselves in the simplest terms possible. Somewhere in there, everyone ventures to Italy for the destination wedding. Thematically, Perry addresses how children reflect their parents’ flaws, with little exploration of the follies of being human – apples don’t fall far from their trees, it seems. Depth of insight is not one of Perry’s strengths, as ever.
Our Call: We know what to expect from Tyler Perry, as usual. His many fans will dutifully watch Married Again, while the rest of us say SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.
