The Stranger

Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion (the possessive indicating a honest-to-god, self-made impresario) was the taming of Tyler Perry. Madea, the pot-smoking, gun-toting grandma played by Perry himself in muummuu drag, suddenly sprouted a conscience, lost her uncouth sense of humor, and took on a troubled foster child. Madea’s tacky blasphemy was gone, and in its place settled a sickly sweet piety that sucked most of the joy out of the picture. So I’m trying not to be too crushed that Madea doesn’t appear in Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls. She would probably have been cast in the role of the titular girls’ noble grandmother (shudder), who dies of noble lung cancer early in the movie, dropping her progeny into a custody war between a virtuous father (Idris Elba of The Wire) and a cat-scratch druggie mom (Tasha Smith). Disguised as a romantic comedy, Daddy’s Little Girls is essentially an etiquette guide for young black men from the hood and their too-picky, overly educated women. It’s sweet enough, but for a Tyler Perry movie, it’s pretty dull. By Annie Wagner