Starring Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Lance Gross, Robbie Jones, Brandy Norwood, Ella Joyce, Kim Kardashian, Vanessa Williams, Renée Taylor
Directed by Tyler Perry
Expectations: Moderate.
There are those that liken the release of a new Tyler Perry film to the coming of a multitude of locusts, and so my interest was always somewhat piqued to delve into his films. I always figured that they couldn’t possibly be so bad as everyone made them out to be; that it had to be hyperbole. So after watching Temptation, the first Tyler Perry movie I’ve seen, I can definitively say that the naysayers are indeed bringing down wave upon wave of hyperbole onto Perry and his creations. One look at the Rotten Tomatoes page for this film says it all: the critic score is 18%, while 74% of users liked it. Judging on Temptation alone, Tyler Perry is clearly not making artistic, cinematic gems to dazzle the critics, he’s making populist entertainment for the masses that are looking for a good melodramatic fix. And boy, let me tell you, this one is full of melodrama.
Judith (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) is a therapist working at a millionaire matchmaking service, run by Vanessa Williams doing a bad French accent. I should note that while the accent is bad and somewhat grating throughout, it does lead to a fantastic moment of heightened melodrama late in the film that I just loved. Anyway, Judith is tasked with working with an Internet millionaire named Harley (Robbie Jones), helping him to develop a matchmaking website for the Williams’s service. He begins to seduce her, and as Judith is married to a great, but detached guy names Brice (Lance Gross), she responds. The setup is pretty simple, for sure, but as a melodrama it’s not so much about giving you unique, specific plot points as it is about giving you fun, heightened derivatives of formula and pulling out your raw emotional responses.
And speaking of Perry’s filmmaking sensibilities, I am at a crossroads. I can choose to go hard into what I didn’t like, but because none of it bothered me because I was so engaged with the characters, I’m going to choose the alternate path. Perry is definitely not much of an artistic filmmaker, and a lot of the film feels something more akin to a play (as his background in the theater would suggest), but there’s more than a few really great, cinematic moments sprinkled throughout the film. One involves a handheld tracking shot of Judith arriving home to her apartment and walking all the way to the kitchen to find her husband. Not only is it nice to look at, it expertly reflects the driven nature of Judith in the scene. Another nice moment involves an incredible shattering of glass, but to say any more would be to say too much. But I will say that when that glass shattered, I’m pretty sure I let out an audible, primal grunt of triumph.
Before I close out, I should probably address Kim Kardashian’s inclusion in the cast. Let’s cut to the chase: her introduction scene was pretty bad. Her delivery was kind of wooden, and it seemed like even she knew that she wasn’t cut out for this line of work. As the film went on, I liked her small scenes more and more, and her acting seemed a lot better in these shorter bursts. But in any case, she’s only in a few scenes and she does not kill the movie or any other such hyperbolic barb. I think the most damning thing about her performance is that thanks to my girlfriend I’ve seen more than my fair share of Keeping Up With The Kardashians (secrets!), and I know she can do a lot better than what she does here.
The real stars of the film, though, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Lance Gross & Robbie Jones, are all excellent. They handle whatever material Perry throws at them with ease, inhabiting the characters and letting the audience in on their lives. They could all be huge movie stars if Hollywood would ever cast a largely unknown black actor in a major motion picture. I don’t want to get into my feelings about the poor casting in mainstream films again, but seriously, give these people some work!
As much as I enjoyed Temptation, it would benefit from some tightening and a dash or two more of cinematic-ness. Honestly, though, these were minor concerns for me as I was having much too much fun riding the melodramatic waves that Temptation took me through. There’s definitely been better melodramas over the years, but Perry strikes a good balance between drama and comedy that hit me just right today.