Daddy's Little Girls

"Daddy's Little Girls" is a decent/good movie that could have been a great movie. I say that it is a decent movie because the overall plot was pretty solid and the acting was very good. However, it could have been a great film if the story could have been told with greater detail and the film had been better edited.

Let's put it this way, if T.P. were to have written this film as a school paper, the teacher would have given it a C+. The theme and concept for the paper would have been sound and offered lots of potential – a solid B. However, due to punctuation errors, grammar errors, misspelled words and run-on sentences (For those who took English at Howard U – instant D)….the teacher was being nice to give T.P. a C+.

T.P. has done only one great movie – "Diary Of A Mad Black Woman". The second film was cute. This 3rd film was OK. I will give him the benefit of the doubt for this film, he probably has many other things that he is working on. However, for the next film, he better take the time to write, direct and edit a high quality product.

My wife and I went to check out "Daddy's Little Girls" not knowing what to expect, seeing that this Tyler Perry production did not have his outrageous Madea character in it. We came away pleasantly surprised with what we saw.

The problem that some moviegoers have with this film is quite simple: they're trying to be movie critics. They look for "movie elements" and generally are disappointed, not realizing that over 99% of people who buy tickets to a movie are not there to critique it in a cinematic context, but more in a entertainment context. You go to a horror movie to be scared to wit's end, not to break down and find the climax, anticlimax, and plot twists. You're there for gore, blood, and screams. With pretty much any Tyler Perry movie, a huge majority of those who watch them are there to either be inspired, to gain insight and maybe a lesson or two on life, or to see what Madea will say next. And if you have that mindset when you enter the theater to see this film, you will probably not come out disappointed.

The trailer showed this film more in a comedic light, but it is by far a drama with interspersed moments of humor. While some of the characters may at first come off as so outrageous as to be comical, they still had some semblance of believability to them. And for a 95-minute film, there's no way to completely dissect every character and why they are the way they are. And again, many non-movie critics understand this.

Idris Elba does a great job stepping away from his more well-known Stringer Bell persona. Though his accent (while not indicative of his British roots is still Stringer-sounding) wouldn't indicate that his character is from Atlanta (where the movie is set), his character is still engrossing. Gabrielle Union does a notable job as the female lead, and Lou Gossett, Jr.'s brief appearances give the movie more context and a slight bit more depth.

If you are a fan of Tyler Perry's plays, you will recognize his approach and the technique to this movie, and though it does not have the cantankerous Madea giving us lessons on life, it still will probably leave a mark on the moviegoer if (s)he goes into the theater to be inspired.

No one could ever accuse Tyler Perry of being the soul of subtlety - either as a filmmaker or as a storyteller. His set-ups are often painfully contrived, with characters who are two-dimensional and stereotypical, and messages that are pat and overly simplistic, to put it mildly. Yet, in this era when too many black characters are either rappers, street thugs, prostitutes or drug dealers, Perry speaks to audiences yearning to see a more positive vision of the African-American experience portrayed on screen. That's certainly an admirable goal, but the problem is that Perry himself is not above indulging in many of those very same stereotypes if, in so doing, it helps him to get his message across.

In "Daddy's Little Girls," the first ethnic stereotype Perry admirably endeavors to shatter is that of the absent or indifferent urban black father. His protagonist, Monty, is a divorced dad of three who works as an auto mechanic in a garage run by none other than Louis Gossett Jr. Monty's ex has pretty much flown the coop, leaving the kids to be raised by her mother who is currently dying of lung cancer. After the woman's death, Jennifer decides she now wants to raise the children, even though she's living with a gangsta' boyfriend who's so low he even sells drugs to the kids in the neighborhood schoolyard. This sets up a fierce custody battle between Monty and Jennifer with the three girls caught in the middle.

As stated previously, it is commendable that Perry wishes to make Monty a model for young male viewers to emulate, but in order to establish Monty's bona fides as a caring father, the filmmaker for some reason has found it necessary to ratchet up the mother's vileness past the point of believability. In fact, Jennifer makes Cinderella's evil stepmother look like June Cleaver and Carol Brady in comparison. Indeed, she is so over-the-top in her villainy that one wonders how such a seemingly level-headed and sweet-tempered soul as Marty could ever have been fooled into marrying her.

Perry doesn't do much better with the main female character, a snooty, high-priced African-American lawyer named Julia, who looks down her nose on poor working-class stiffs like Monty who takes a position as her much-abused chauffeur in order to make a little money on the side. Monty soon discovers that all the over-stressed Julia needs is a good man to bring meaning to her sterile, empty life. Thus, with the character of Julia, Perry manages to insult blacks, career women and specifically black career women in one fell swoop.

The movie makes some interesting points about the role class consciousness plays in the black community, with wealthy blacks sometimes more dismissive of their less well-off counterparts than are wealthy whites. Unfortunately, this theme is played out in the context of a fairly formulaic romance between Monty and Julia, with the "little girls" of the title reduced to not much more than walk-on roles in the story. Idris Elba is appealing and solid as the sincere, hardworking Monty, while Gabrielle Union does what she can with the poorly written part of Julia.

The narrative also suffers from what first-year screen writing students (or "Crash" deriders) like to refer to as "coincidence overload," with characters bumping into one another at all-too-convenient moments or just happening to learn crucial bits of information from news stories on TV.

"Daddy's Little Girls" starts off with the best of intentions, and there are certainly some poignant, touching moments to be found in the film, but the movie is so fixated on pandering to the emotions of its audience, especially in the melodramatic final reel, that most of the goodwill one brings to the project has pretty much evaporated by the time the closing credits come rolling by.

Monty is an honest black man working as a mechanic, financially supporting his three daughters who live with his ex-wife's mother. When his mother-in-law dies, Monty is left looking after his daughters and takes on extra work as a driver for young, pretty and very successful lawyer Julia. His first day on the job brings disaster though as one of his daughters starts a fire, forcing him to take Julia to the hospital, getting him fired and social services handing his kids to their estranged mother (who lives with the local drug dealer). Monty is forced to go for custody to keep his girls but cannot get a lawyer and only a moment of kindness from Julia sees her take his case for free. While she works with him she begins to fall for his charms despite the gulf in their social status.

I want to be clear that, although I came to this film off the back of The Wire, I did not expect it to be of the same quality (or even the same genre) and I did not come to it with my mind made up or some sort of chip on my shoulder that Elba should only do projects that Wire fans somehow approve of in line with his brilliant turn as Stringer Bell. No, I came to the film because I like him as a screen presence and was happy to see this film for what it was – a romantic drama. In the broad sweep the film is OK in very base terms but the biggest problem with it is evident from the very start. Within a few minutes of the start we have a saintly old woman coughing and come comments made about her health and I immediately said "she's not making it long into this" – fade to her funeral seconds later! This is one example but there are lots of examples of really poor development and convenient narrative jumps. This may not sound like a problem but consider the main thrust of the film is the relationship between Julia and Monty convincing and engaging.

Sadly it never does and it felt like the writers had developed this in about three stages. 1: snotty impatient dislike of Monty; 2: he's not all bad but it's not for me; 3: Monty is the love of my life. The thing is that there is literally nothing between these stages and it feels like a switch has been flicked to move from one to another with the impact on the film being that it simply doesn't feel real. This left me not caring too much about the relationship throughout. The case of the title is similarly unengaging as it doesn't ring true either – it is written to elicit emotions from the viewer but by being so lame it just didn't suck me in or produce any dramatic tension at all. It isn't all bad though because it does have a very basic charm to it and, as a daytime TV movie, it would work really well for the target audience – it is just a shame that that is the best you can say about it because of how poorly written all of it is – the final five minutes being an example of everything being tied up whether it makes total sense or not. I understand that there is an element of Capraesque community fairytale here and I have no problem with that but didn't think it excused it from being "good" in areas of writing, characters and development.

The reason for me coming to the film is one of its few strengths. Elba doesn't get anywhere near the complexity or intensity of Stringer Bell of course (not that the Emmy's would agree with my summary of his acting in that) but he still has a good presence and makes for a lovable lead character. His charm and looks does help the film get away with a lot. The harder acting role is Julia because you have to make this character change convincingly and also be horrid early on without pushing the audience away. The bad news is that this role went to Union, who doesn't have the greatest range. She cannot make it work and her performance is really simple and totally unconvincing as being a real person. Her looks do not help her that much here and the lack of reality in her character breaks the chemistry between her and Elba. The kids are cute and slightly annoying in their delivery, being too obvious in doing what they are doing. Nobody else has much to do – Gossett Jr rolls through in an attempt to add some weight to the film by his name, Smith, Ross, Williams, Vaughn and others all do the basics but not much more.

Daddy's Little Girls is a very basic film that will work best in a few years when you stumble upon on in the middle of TVM stuff in the middle of a weekday but even then it is pretty thin stuff. It relies heavily on Elba and Union's performances, both of whom try their best but don't have decent characters and simply try to charm their way through. The writing is poor as it lacks any flow or development worth talking about and it feels like it was delivered in blocks. Were it funnier, more dramatic or more engaging, this wouldn't matter but the film is not good enough to cover the development problem and it gets dull and silly very quickly with only Afro-Caribbean TVM weepy fans being left loving it.

Tyler Perry's Medea-less tale of a father trying to raise his daughters but finding trouble from the girls mother who has taken up with a drug dealer.

Good little movie with a nice sense of place. Certainly moralistic and a tad simplistic (as all his stories are), but enjoyable none the less. Its a good film but has little that will make it stand out from the rest other than its good film. (I'm left to wonder if Perry's rather busy dance card will hurt his film out put since with a TV show and now several films a year I have to wonder if he will be able to craft films that stand out, or will they be like this good, but forgettable?) Worth watching- though odds are you'll forget you've ever seen it.