Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns: Bassett’s an Asset in Heavy-handed Family Drama
Angela Bassett, Rick Fox, Lance Gross, Jenifer Lewis

By Christopher Manson April 3, 2008 Issue

Could it be that Tyler Perry is the most successful African-American filmmaker of all time? Well, sure, if box-office returns are the sole criteria. Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Perry’s first screenplay credit and movie appearance as wisecracking Madea, was one of the surprise hits of 2005. Perry has since evolved into a quadruple-threat—writer, director, producer, and actor. (Take that, Spike Lee!) In addition, DVDs of Perry’s plays have sold millions of copies. Many of these have been expanded into feature films in the last few years, the latest being Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns.

That’s right. Perry is the new Frank Capra, but he’s not content with his name above the title. He has to have name in the title. I haven’t seen Perry’s earlier works, but based on Meet the Browns, I’m not in a hurry to load up my Netflix queue. The movie is never quite sure what it wants to be. Hard-hitting urban drama? Not quite. Shrill family comedy? Sort of. The one saving grace is the performance of Angela Bassett as a struggling single mother in Chicago (shades of Good Times, a ‘70s sitcom loved by both Perry and me).

Bassett turns 50 this year, and she remains one of the loveliest women to grace the screen. Her appearances in John Sayles’ films City of Hope and Sunshine State are particularly commendable, and I always loved her turn as the sole decent character in Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days. Bassett won a Golden Globe for her performance as Tina Turner in 1993’s What’s Love Got to Do with It, for which she was also nominated for an Academy Award. In 2003, Bassett won NAACP Image Awards in both the television and film acting categories, for The Rosa Parks Story and Sunshine State respectively.

So what exactly is she doing in this mess of a film? She’s redeeming it, almost. Perry doesn’t give her much to work with in the way of dialogue, but the woman lights up the screen with her strength and emotion every time she appears. Of course, even in such dubious entertainments as Vampire in Brooklyn, Maske and Anonymous, and Supernova, Bassett gave her all. (But don’t load up your Netflix queue just to test my theory.)

The first half-hour of Meet the Browns documents the Bassett character’s downward spiral. Brenda loses her job. She struggles to keep her teenage son away from drug-dealers as her sassy, bipolar Latino pal smokes pot and tosses bricks at the kid’s deadbeat daddy. Brenda soon receives notice that her father, whom she never really knew, has passed away, so she and the children hop on a bus to Smalltown, Georgia for some much-needed comic relief.

Brenda’s family includes a smoking and drinking gossip played by Jenifer Lewis, perhaps the most annoying character I’ve seen in ages. The funeral scene is played for laughs, and when the will is read, Brenda finds herself the unwilling recipient of a run-down house that could be used as scenery for a Sanford & Son remake. There is also a too-good-to-be-true romantic interest, a basketball coach who sees genuine potential in Brenda’s son.

There’s plenty of melodrama and scattered moments of sweetness. Rick Fox is charming as the man who seems destined to break Brenda’s heart, and Lance Gross hits the right notes as teenage Michael, although he looks a bit too old for the role.

An incoherent Madea cameo feels like an afterthought, and the family dinner scenes are marred by awful, intrusive score music. More time should have been devoted to fleshing out the characters of Brenda’s two young daughters. Veteran African-American actors Irma P. Hall and Margaret Avery shine in small roles, but Frankie Faison—late of HBO’s The Wire—is woefully underutilized.

Because of Perry’s extraordinary success in film, stage, television and publishing, it remains to be seen whether the auteur can take his craft to a higher level. It would certainly benefit Perry to collaborate with other writers and maybe even relinquish the director’s chair to someone with more of a knack. Still, casting Bassett in the lead role represents a step in the right direction.

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