Cinepals - TYLER PERRY'S TEMPTATION: CONFESSIONS OF A MARRIAGE COUNSELOR Movie Reaction and Review!

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Jaby and Michael continue on their Tyler Perry journey with the 2013 movie, Temptation. Tyler Perry's Temptation (2013) follows a married woman whose life unravels after she embarks on a passionate but dangerous affair that tests her morals and decisions. Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor was directed by Tyler Perry (Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea’s Family Reunion, Acrimony). The film stars Jurnee Smollett (Lovecraft Country, Eve’s Bayou, Birds of Prey), Lance Gross (House of Payne, Our Kind of People, Sleepy Hollow), Kim Kardashian (Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Disaster Movie, PAW Patrol: The Movie), Vanessa Williams (Soul Food, Candyman, New Jack City), Brandy Norwood (Moesha, Cinderella, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer), and Robbie Jones (Hellcats, American Dreamer, One Tree Hill). Watch the full length reaction watchalong on www.cinejump.com SOCIAL MEDIA ~ACHARA KIRK~ Instagram: @AcharaKirk ~MICHAEL BOOSE~ Instagram: @BooseIsLoose ~CINEPALS~  YouTube: @CinePals Insta: https://instagram.com/TheCinePals Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheCinePals

Senna. Pals. I thought I would just address the elephant in the room real quick. Okay. There's two things going on. People are going to notice. There's this thing that happened and there's that thing that happened over there. Both hair related.

I was just jushing up the hair a little bit. It never comes out like this. I'm like, okay, I can just like have this on camera for posterity. I got it once. And this will only last like 10 minutes. 30 minutes in the film, it's gonna like be stupid. Anyway, we're watching Temptation Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, the Tyler Perry film.

Oh, I'm sure everyone. Everyone's going to ask in the comments. What's it like being a dad, Michael? Oh, it's great. Honestly, phenomenal. I love every second of it. Hey. How's my little man?

It's a little man. Aged him dramatically. Yeah, they aged him dramatically and no one else. Can't wait for you. Woo! That kid hits its first birthday, the gray hairs start coming in. I tell you. As soon as she starts crawling, I'm done.

Yeah. Dang. Wow. I wonder if the marriage counts her play is a musical. I don't know how they turn this into a musical. This was a story that took some interesting turns. I was not expecting. The acting on most of the cast was pretty cool.

Really good. I liked it. I did not like Kim Kardashian's performance. I was sitting there thinking about their whole interaction after she got the flowers at the desk. And I was like, this scene, you could have just dropped and still it would have had zero effect on the movie if it just wasn't in there anymore.

Yeah. I fully agree. Every Kim Kardashian scene felt largely superfluous except for maybe the first one where we established that she's like the comely girl of the office. That was about the only establishing story movement bit of Kim's performance. Yeah. Overall, like we were talking about, the writing was really, really well done. I fully believe, I mean, obviously all of this is heightened in sort of that Tyler Perry aspect.

Yes. So, you know, who knows if someone like Harley being as overt as that would actually work, but it all felt, you know, sort of grounded in reality. And as someone who is in a long-term high school sweetheart's like married relationship, I absolutely can see how Bryce and Judith, would end up in a situation where Judith suddenly feels like she wants to step out of her marriage, even though he's a really, really great guy. Yeah. You know, most of the depictions of, like, a main female character stepping out of a relationship is usually, like, the other relationships abusive.

So they're stepping out with the person that makes them feel good because it's the good guy. It's the guy they were supposed to end up with. It's the guy they're meant to be with, right? Like, what if they're soulmates? Here, we kind of turn it on its head where we're watching her step out of her, objectively good relationship that otherwise we would be rooting for but it's a really excellent depiction of like

how you can get kind of stuck in a loop in a long-term relationship. I can't get past that facial hair. You had the blinders on the entire movie. I'm like halfway through your sentence I just started checking out. I'm like that beard

is just like really there. I'm so not used to it. Anyway, I can absolutely see the reality of Judith and Bryce's relationship and why Judith would leave, which, you know, as the married man, I'm like, oh, man, I'm sitting here like analyzing my own relationship, like, am I making my wife feel appreciated enough? Are we going on enough dates? Like, is everything okay? I'm fully confident we're fine. But at the same time, I'm like, hmm, you know what? Maybe I should get her flowers on my way home from work today. If that is the worst that comes from this experience, that's a good thing. That at the very least. That it makes you think. about your own life and relationships. It makes you reflect in such a way where you're like, okay, you know, whatever your feelings might be about the film or whatever, positive or negative. It's like if you walk away with a better version of yourself potentially, even if it's just for a day or an hour.

You've at least approved a microbe. A microcosm. Can't tell you how many times I heard my mom cussing like five minutes after getting out of church. So if it at least makes you a somewhat better person. like that says something and so movies should make you think and it should make you reflect and so I think that's cool

and it does it did that for me actually truth be told but I think that it's a very easy thing as a guy watching to access that because it's speaking to your worst fears I was gonna say insecurity

but it's not an insecurity it's just more of a fear like I think everyone kind of fears that generally we never think it would happen to us yeah you're always like that's something that happens to other people.

My relationship is perfectly good and, you know, you could be falling into the same traps that Bryce was in that you're content in your relationship so you're not making effort. I will never, ever forget a birthday, however. Like you said, it's so easy. You put like a calendar thing early on in the relationship and then it just becomes habit. But like, twice in a row, man, like, after the first time you add some sort of reminder, you circle it in red on the calendar, you put it in your phone. in. I know they were like, I'm not sure exactly what time period they were putting it at because they had like older cell phones for this movie coming out in 2013, I think. But, you know, you could still add like some sort of reminder notification or something. Yeah. There's something I want to address real fast because sometimes people get shocked when we don't mention a famous person that shows up in a movie. So when Vanessa Williams showed up, I honed in on her and I was like, oh, hey, I didn't even realize she was with Kim Kardashian in.

the first scene both of them had in this film. Oh. But the thing is, like, I get nervous about actually saying a name because I'm always like, I'm 99% sure I'm right, but there's a 1% chance I'm wrong and will get scorned. Right. I thought that was Vanessa Williams, but she looks a little different from the last time I watched her. Yeah. And then Brandy, like, she was in my favorite Cinderella movie, but like I haven't watched her

since TV. She still looks larger to the same, but it's like, I just don't know for sure. Yeah. So that's all on a side. Overall, stunning performances from everybody. Minus one notable exception. But I think that I like a lot of what the film was doing. Yeah.

I like a lot of what it was exploring in the conversations it's making you have, like with yourself or whoever. And it's interesting. It's, but there was like, I feel like there was progressions that maybe weren't quite there that I was looking for. Our wife character, Judith, was just like, I take her to be really, really smart, you know? The way she's able to break things down and all that. And then she's like getting lost in some kind of drug situation.

And I'm like, whoa. Well, smart doesn't necessarily translate to wisdom is sort of. There's book intelligence and then there's wisdom and learning from your mistakes. I guess I took her to be a wise character. That's fair. You know, like when she's in his place and she's able to pick up on all the things, it's like, that's a particular kind of person who has an awareness. And so for her to get lost in it, the excuse being made by the movie is she was caught up in her feelings for this guy.

swept away. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, okay, all right. I guess that's a fair argument if I'm having an argument with the movie, right? Yeah. You know what I mean? I get what you're saying. It's like, yeah, she does seem intelligent.

She does seem like she's onto him to a certain extent. And then suddenly we have this switch flipped kind of on the plane where suddenly she's really, really into him. But I think that ultimately it's a two-way street, right? Like, it's not just her being smart and then suddenly giving in. It's also Harley's manipulation. Yes, yes. To a certain extent.

And him just wearing her down where suddenly he blurred that line that she had pretty stringently drawn. Yeah. Because you can even see it in the airplane scene where he's like, do you want me? And she's like, I'm a married woman. That's not a no. Right, right, right, right. At no point did she say no, she doesn't want him. So he played to kind of her, I guess, baser instincts.

And so I can kind of buy where she'd lose that. Sorry, sometimes it takes time to process. No, no, no, that's totally fair. So I think the thing that bothers me is that she didn't get herself out of the situation. Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough. You know, it's like he had to come rescue her, which I guess it's fine. It doesn't have to be that she saved herself. Not every film has to be where the main female who's caught in a situation saves herself.

But it is a situation where I wanted to see her come out the other side. And it took him stooping her. And like, yeah. And like even then it wasn't like, you know, him staking her and then her coming to the realization of like, oh my God, this is truly who he is. It was like he beat her senseless, which is obviously like not okay. And then Bryce comes in and saves her rather than her like leaving and going back to Bryce and being like, I messed up. Yeah.

Bryce coming in and picking Judith up is for the guys. It's for the guys in the audience that are like, I'd save my girl. I'd never let her. And it's also kind of hinted at in that opening sequence with the three guys on the street where he doesn't defend her. That's true. We gotta have that moment where he comes back and like has the fight and like punches the crap out of Harley because he's the better guy and would defend her in a situation that actually needs it. It doesn't help that Harley was like super drunk. Yeah. It's like okay you you kicked a man while he was down basically. I kind of wanted him to do worse to him

truth be told given like the hands he put on her. Lance Gross. He did a I like his performance better here than in Meet the Browns. Like, he was fine to Meet the Browns. Right. It just wasn't anything that interesting to me. Whereas here, and I think that maybe he was just too old for that role. He was a little too old for that, like, teenage son role. He looked like a full adult.

Yeah. Even if he wasn't, he looked like a grown-up. Yeah. So this role, I feel like suited him better. I think that the only thing that kind of threw me was, like, it was a big thing. It's just like he had a, he was like super ripped. And I'm like, okay. these guys are they feel like they're interchangeable then yeah you know it's like you could have literally

had Lance Gross play the other dude yes and Robbie Jones played the husband it's like okay would like you know they don't feel too different other than like this person has these set of lines you know we fully could have gone through the entire movie without having the scene where Lance Gross gets out of the shower yeah if we hadn't he still would have felt kind of Schleppy and more husband, homebody, rather than, oh, so you're just as smoking as Harley, so why do we have a problem here? I just feel like it needs an explanation. No, I agree. I agree. That's like introducing a time machine in the middle of the movie, like, wait, what? It is fully a small nitpick, but I'm absolutely behind that nitpick because the moment they showed him

ripped, I was suddenly like off of the Judith train again. Again. I was kind of understanding her getting roped in by Harley because Robbie Jones, his performance had such like oozing charisma, especially in those initial scenes that I was like, oh, I can absolutely see why you're getting like sucked in. He's got this nice guy routine and then he's got the rich kind of, you know, domineering routine. And you can see the transition of like how he gets her and how he changes who he is to appeal to her fantasies. Right. Right. And so, you know, him being ripped and running around shirtless, great. but her husband is also like an Adonis, so what are you doing? Her husband is objectively even more ripped. Yeah. And so that, for me, is like a Harry Potter time turner. Like, you can't put that back in the box. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Obviously, like, this other guy's offering way more than abs. Yeah. You know, guys care more about the abs than women do generally. It's true. That's fully the male gays. Fully the male gays. Yeah, like, when a guy on a dating app, because I know you don't have experience with this, When a guy on a dating app shows his abs,

I hear women often swipe left almost immediately because they're turned off by the brazenness of that. And I'm like, oh, okay, I get that. Fair enough. Yeah. Proceeds to delete all app. Exactly. Photos off of dating app.

I thought that Brandy actually did a really nice job in this film. Oh, yeah. She very, I was going to say truthfully, but I feel like she did a great job of conveying the truth of that character in her performance. yes you know um the fear that she experiences of of being found by him again and like there's obvious and there's like whatever her behavior was like there was very clear it was very clear to me that she there was some kind of trauma there yeah before the movie made it more obvious yeah so i like that

in her performance i like the scene when um i mean there was a very real reason like which which is she has HIV of why she uh resisted lance oh yeah rice i mean but like I liked that scene, even without the HIV thing, I thought it was a nice scene of like, yeah, this is not what this is. I liked it too, because there was a very real possibility that that ended up happening. And, you know, you and I were kind of both being like, that's the girl he ends up with because, you know, she's really going to support him. And then it isn't. She's just there and supports him through those emotions. But I really did like that scene where Tyler Perry made the choice of like, no, this is someone who's been through it and understands that you're rebounding and it's just the natural.

chemical thing your brain does and we are not attracted to each other so we're not going to do this. I do feel bad for the guys in those scenes though because like it happened in Breaking Bad as well where Skyler cheats on Walter White and so he tries to have a thing with the lady at his school and then she rejects him and I'm like no but she got to like why doesn't he get to? Yeah, come on! Why is the writer so mean to him? It's like is it not enough that he had cancer? Why doesn't he get like that lady who is also attractive? Yeah, yeah. But anyway, that's neither here nor there.

Because the whole problem with Breaking Bad is that the writers were mean to Walter. Yes. Yeah, exactly. But no, I... Period at the end. I agree. You know, you're kind of like rooting for him to get a little bit. But obviously, he gets his happy ending and finds a woman that makes him happy and they have a kid together.

And, like, you know, he ends up having that story that we... want for him. It's just not with the immediacy that we'd like to see as the audience. But I think it's the better choice, character-wise. So you had mentioned how, like, all the way back at the beginning of the conversation, you mentioned how oftentimes these films where someone steps out is because, like, there's something inherently wrong in their actual relationship, their first relationship. In the movie Unfaithful, it's very close to this in so far as there was really nothing

objectively wrong in her marriage other than she was kind of bored. Yes. You know? And so she meets this other guy who's like young and very handsome and blah, blah, blah. Only things go a very different way in that movie, which I won't say in case you want to watch it. But yeah,

so that's immediately where my mind went is that film. If you haven't seen it, it's a little, I don't like movies where characters cheat on each other. It makes me uncomfortable. I just don't like it. I really love to like, you're gearing up to suggest the movie and you immediately pumped to the brakes.

Yeah, like, this is not a film I would recommend, not because it's bad or anything. Like, that's not it at all. It's just, like, don't love stories where this is the path people go. Right. It always, like, makes me feel weird. Even with something, a movie I love, like, Titanic,

it's like inherent to the story. Technically, yes. Is a lot of cheating. Yeah. And it's like, it's just kind of, I understand, like, we're rooting for Jack and Rose, et cetera. But it's still like, the whole basis of the film is unfaithfulness, right? in terms of how their love story starts.

It's a fantastic film, and I bought it on 4K Blu-ray, even though it was expensive. I'm going to, in another tangent from earlier things I said. The thing you wanted to remember. You reminded me by saying you wanted to remember, and I know someone's going to comment why didn't Michael share this story. So we were talking about the initial face-off between Harley and Bryce and how Bryce was just so unaware that Harley was sizing him up, and Harley was so obviously sizing him up.

when my wife and I first started dating in high school we were in drama debate and forensics which meant competition theater and so we'd travel around to different towns in southeast Alaska and visit different high schools for competitions and so one time I ran into this guy

from another town whose name was Michael and you know looked kind of like me, blonde hair, blue eyes Wow. Ross Ross Ross. Anyway so he immediately gravitates towards me. Hi.

Hi. Okay. And we're talking and... You are the paleontologist. And he keeps asking like interesting questions about my relationship. Are you a friend of Rachel's? If she's happy or if I think she's happy in the relationship and like, you know, she's really great and like you really love her, don't you?

And I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, I'm not thinking much of it. I'm like, this guy's just weirdly interested in the relationship. At the end of that day, my wife comes over and she's like, so you were hanging out with Michael all day and I was like yeah and she goes okay he had a massive crush on me in high school and in like we had this like summer arts camp that she used to do like right before she was dating and he like you know confessed that he had a crush on her and things like that and was really interested her and I really like flashed back to all of our interactions I was like he was sizing

me up oh he was like trying to see if I was right for the girl that he had a crush on oh funny that was like what that's I had no idea I I was like, Bryce, I was like, totally over my head. I was like, this guy's just being jovial. He's just a weird guy. He's just a dude asking about my relationship, but like, whatever. Yeah. Yeah, totally getting sized up the entire time.

I feel like the three most dangerous words in the English language can be at times. Are you happy? It's a very dangerous question. It's just as dangerous as the words I love you. I feel like, are you happy? It can really mess you up. And I've been caught saying that a few times, and every time I always, up like in this weird detour I wasn't expecting every single time I don't know if I'm going to

bore anybody with any of those stories sure enough all the comments are like what are you talking about but I'll just leave it at that for now it's like if people really want to know I'll say it in the next Tyler Perry reaction or something yeah there you go um but yeah it's just like you can ask that and so when he asked that question are you happy I'm like oh shit yep yep yep as soon as he hit you are you happy I was like oh no yeah it's a very dangerous people don't realize that's a very dangerous question to ask somebody because especially if you ask it with a certain intention behind those words, you can open up a whole can of worms or it's like a manipulative thing where you're trying to get something from that person. Because even like if you're the person

being asked, you suddenly are looking at everything in your life under a microscope and under the guise of like, am I happy? And like it's hard when you're suddenly objectively looking at it to be like, yes, I am happy. There are things I enjoy. You know, you stop looking at just the little tiny joys of just enjoying your life. And you start going, no, I'm not where I wanted to be with my career like I thought I would be when I was in high school or you know this that and the other thing happened and you start over analyzing and suddenly your objectively happy content life seems less so yeah and that can really start making you think differently about your existence yeah that's a problem yeah um coming back to this the story i'm trying to figure out how to

articulate this during this entire conversation it's like how do i say this when um there was a scene between Bryce and Brandy, who's Brandy's characters, Melinda. Yep. There was a scene with them. I don't know if it was in the pharmacy or in her apartment. It was one or the other. But there was a moment where I was like, oh, okay. So he's the main character, and I didn't realize that.

Like, but that's not even the correct thought, because it's more of an ensemble piece. Right. Because she is still the main character as it's being told through her eyes. But it's just like, I sort of like wasn't sure what I'm saying. supposed to be rooting for. And I think that's what sort of threw me at a certain point in the film, like, I don't know what I'm hoping for comes, I don't know what I want to come out of the story at a certain point. Because like sort of movies in my opinion are supposed to kind of guide you a little bit towards a feeling in a very kind of a subconscious way of like, oh,

this is what I want for this character. Yeah. You know, and it's like at a certain point, I'm like, I don't know what I want. I want. I'm very confused. I don't know how I want this to turn out. Yeah. Yeah. I like, I know I don't want him to end up with her. And that's all I have. And that's, like, that's not the best of feelings, but that's... Right, because you're rooting for the end of the relationship that you've watched, like, start to fail at the beginning of the movie. And usually when you watch something like this, you're like, I want the relationship to succeed, right? You want them to come through. And at the top, we're, like, rooting for them to figure it out and her not to go all the way with Harley.

And then she does go all the way with Harley. And you're suddenly like, okay, I don't know if I can reconcile her doing this. Yes. And still being in a relationship with Bryce. and I absolutely get what you mean where you're suddenly like okay I want better for Bryce but I also want better for Judith

and I don't know if better for both of them is them fixing their relationship and staying together or better for both of them is being a part so it is kind of I think what that kind of becomes is more of a tragedy you know like there isn't necessarily the happy ending we want there's the happy ending or at least the ending we get and so it's not going to be

emotionally satisfying in a way because it's not the happy ending. You know, they're not together. They don't ride off into the sunset. They don't learn a lesson. They still learn a lesson, but they have to deal with the consequences of their actions. Sometimes film allows us to move past the real world consequences of relationship drama and things like that and people are happy and they stay together. But Tyler Perry, at least in this one and quite a few of his films, really does kind

of lock in on, no, these people are changed and their relationship to one another is changed and it will never be the same no matter how it turns out yeah i don't know if he's borrowing from his friends stories and he's just a good listener yeah right or if he's gone through some shit but um there's a comment i've seen come up a couple times with regards to tyler parry films and it's his treatment of female characters and generally speaking i kind of brush that off and i'm like well he's dealing with fictional these are these are not real people you know this is a story that he wanted to tell. Right, it's heightened.

It's heightened. But this is one of the first instances where I was like, okay, that thought now is in my head and I'm having a hard time not looking in it through that lens. Right, right. Of like a bad treatment of a female, like his main female character. At the end, like, is there anything redeemable about this person? I think that's where I'm struggling because I'm like, why do I care about, like, I hate what happened to her at the hands of Harley.

Harley. I did not like that at all. But it's like, what do I want for her other than to not be next to him? Like, I don't know what to root for is what it comes back to. Yeah. Whereas I know with Bryce, I'm like, I hope you finds like a way out of this. Yeah, I want you to come back. I want you to be successful. I want you to have a good relationship that like fulfills you in that same way.

And then for Judith, you're just like, I just want you to learn a lesson, I guess. Yeah. The whole HIV thing really took me for a turn. And I kind of wish that there's a couple ways to go about it. I kind of wish that Bryce and Judith actually did end up back together and the film shows you how...

That's difficult. Yeah. You know, that's a difficult journey. I almost feel like the whole HIV thing, like that whole... That was not necessary. I feel like that was going the opposite direction

of what the film should have been going. It really kind of felt like it came out of left field. Yeah. Not that there's anything wrong with exploring that. It's like, that's just not what the movie was about. Right. It feels like an extra tacking on of consequence to Judith's actions beyond just hurting Bryce and ruining her relationship. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, by the way, you also have this life-changing illness that you can't get rid of. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. It did feel like it kind of came a little out of nowhere. And I'm not sure if that was to give more drama to Brandy's character, Melinda, or... It was definitely shocking.

Yeah. It was definitely like, whoa. And, you know, he does a good job of having woe moments, you know. I can, every single time every film I've watched, there's always like, oh, what though? Yeah, no, for sure. There's always that moment. Which I respect. You know, he's got to hit those beats.

I just wish that it, this is a character piece more than anything, right? And so I just kind of wish it explored the characters deeper, you know, help me to understand them even more by the end of it and give me a sense of, like, what I'm kind of hoping for. Maybe they try to work it out and then they just. can't, and it ends like the wonder years. When he left the next summer to study art history in Paris, I was there to meet her when she came home with my wife and my first son. You know, it just felt like...

Yeah, I get you. I get you. The ending was just so strange to me. I'm like, okay, well, that's what you did. Well, all right. That's what you get. I just, like, going back to strange, I just am thinking about this poor client that came into her office. She's paying $80 an hour.

$80 an hour or something like that. Just gets trauma. on, like the detail, like, you didn't have to go into nearly that much detail to illustrate your point that, like, sometimes when you're in a long-term relationship, a person comes along that makes you feel like you're getting what you're missing from your relationship. You know how you could have summed it up? The 80-20 rule from, why did I get married? If you just explained it clinically like that, I'm sure she would have gotten the message instead of going into your entire, well, your sister's entire dramatic journey in stepping out of her relationship. relationship. But I'm glad it worked for that girl. Hopefully they'll go out and have a happy relationship. You know, maybe it's one of those scared straight moments. It is a scared straight moment. She's so terrified that she will never, ever consider stepping out of her marriage again. Yeah. But I'm like, there were so many other ways to have that conversation rather than this. Yeah. I mean, well, that's, otherwise you don't have a movie. That's true. I mean, you got to have the

set up for the film. You got to have something. And Tyler Perry plays in movies or morality plays and movies so you've got to have the people learning the moral yeah i think going back to what you said near the beginning it's like if the worst thing that comes of this is is that i reflect i say that's a good thing yeah um and uhs about the movie like you know while i have a things that i find could have been objectively better i do like that it made me reflect yeah and that's that's cool it's like the worst thing that could happen is that you forget a film right away it's like that was very normal and now it's out of my mind of all the films in the world that was one of them yeah exactly yeah exactly um but this definitely makes me think and and it hopefully you walk away

with a deeper appreciation for your significant other yeah not to bamboozle you okay i want to talk about temptation a little bit more oh this is an add-on to temptation shot the next day go on and michael know that I was going to do this. I wanted to surprise him so you guys could see his genuine response. So I wrote this whole thing on Temptation this morning. Feel free to raise your hand any time. We're about to get a five paragraph essay. Yes.

Feel free to raise your hand anytime you want to interrupt me. I've had more time to process the film. I've changed my stance in the film to a more favorable position. Got it. I realized that a lot of the disappointment I felt was because of my preference and bias towards certain conventional methods of story progression, including a main character helping themselves out of a situation. Well, might have helped me a bit towards what the aim of the film was, would have been a

return to the therapy session one more time midway. Perhaps the marriage counts... Oh, yeah. Just once. Yeah. That's a good point, because we really just... And I was kind of thinking about that partway through, too, is we really just sort of like, all right, great, we're going into the flashback, and then the whole movie is

flashback. We don't have any, like, relation to the, like, I guess, aged character and wise of character. That makes sense. Yeah. Now that you mention it, yeah, that is something I missed. So perhaps the marriage counseling session was supposed to conclude and the wife, this is a theory, like a theory of how it could have gone if they came back midway. Perhaps the marriage counseling session was supposed to conclude and the wife asked the therapist to go on.

So she stayed. Right. Instead of like agreeing with the end of the session, she's like, I got to hear the rest of this. I mean, yeah, because that's even what I talked about is like it really feels like instead of just being like, hey, here's this whole, like, 20, 80, or 80-20 theory that sounds like perfect marriage counseling, I'm just going to trauma dump you with my story of my sister. And, like, that seems like a really long time to continue staying in the session after your husband has already walked out. Yeah, unless it's like a 15-minute chat. And, like, we are watching it in real

time. And so the realization I had was akin to what you had said, which is this is a tragedy. In plays, in the most traditional sense, stories are comedies or tragedies, and this definitely falls into the latter. But taking not just from this film, but Tyler Perry's films in general, there's always a hint ranging from heavy to light of Judeo-Christian values. The Bible is full of tragic stories with the aim of helping us to live a better life. I once said a while back that sometimes Tyler Perry films can feel like church in the sense of giving us guidance, and this film actually attacks that with that attitude more directly than previous films. In fact, if you look at the poster, which I should show you. Ooh.

We've got visual aids to this presentation, gang. There. If you look at the poster... Oh, my God. It's the apple and the snake. Oh, wow. Okay, Tyler. It's effectively showing you

the snake from the Garden of Eden shaped like an apple. Yeah. That could be a massive coincidence combined with me projecting, but I'm very much inclined to think that that was by design. Yeah.

I'm also inclined to think that perhaps this film might have been a low-key response to the book, 50 Shades of Gray. The film came later. Oh, he came out later. Yeah. I don't know how deep, Tyler...

Go ahead. Oh, because you've got the parallels of, like, rich business person comes in and presents, like, the, I guess, illicit, desirable, like, crazy, intimate life versus the, like, standard vanilla run-of-the-mill stuff. Okay, I see what you're saying. I haven't seen 50 Shades of Gray, nor have I read the book. I'm just familiar with the ideas of it. I don't know how deep Tyler Perry meant for temptation to actually be, but it's stuck with me and made me think about it after the fact. There are things I still wish the film did different, but my appreciation for it has certainly increased. Things that I wish were different.

Okay. When Judith was being impolitely complimented in the street, she showed some fight in her, some toughness and bravado that exceeded her husbands. Yes. I don't know if it would have been too much or too expensive, which goes counter to how Tyler Perry produces his films aiming for implied to save money in time. But I would have thought Judith would have fought back against Christian Gray. I mean Harley. she could still lose the battle right but like she might have had a little bit more fight

and she did kind of have some fight initially when they walked back into the house yeah get your hands off me yeah yeah yeah but yeah she really didn't like go after him yeah but so to me she isn't giving up without putting hands on Christian I mean Harley boy boy you want to try to touch

I like wrote this up I forgot the tones I'm supposed to express boy you want to try to touch me go ahead but you're going to lose an eye or something in the process Yes. Again, this would have been complex, time-consuming, and more costly. You effectively get the same result with her in the bathtub, but for me, it would have been more consistent with her character if they showed that. Right. Any thoughts? I still think it was leaning more towards having her husband come in and, like, I guess, fulfilling the male fantasy of saving your woman, where he's got to get the beat down on, on Christian, I mean, Harley.

So to that extent, I think it's. It's still going into, or like playing to that theme. And so having her put up more of a fight would have watered down that idea. A little bit, yeah. So I see what Tyler was going for with it and why he maybe didn't have her fight back quite as much. But I also understand where you're coming from with that. Yeah. There was a missed opportunity with Brandy, aka Melinda.

The film spent considerable time establishing the paralyzing fear she had because of Harley. When they went back to Harley's place, the movie forgot about that. That's true. She didn't move at all. Yeah. Again, perhaps it would have been too expensive. But I think instead of the back and forth with the husband going in and out of the house

because he grabbed his wife, put her in the truck, goes back in. I think what would have been interesting and cool is if the husband runs in the head and we stay with Brandy outside who is having a hard time because she's afraid. Going in. Yes. Yeah. But when she hears all the commotion happening inside, the fight unfolding, she works up the strength to go inside.

That's her arc. Confront him. Yes. By the time she gets in there, Bryce is charging Harley through the window and beating the brakes off his ass. And then Melinda steps in and opposite. That's when they both tend to Judith. Yeah. Yeah, I like that better. Yeah. Because, again, like her whole arc, Melinda's whole arc, ends with her being like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not running from Harley anymore.

Yeah. And then Bryce has the, Judith! Judith! Yeah, exactly. Moment. But again, like, we don't really see any sort of character progression or growth from Melinda. Yeah. Because she's just like, oh, yeah, I'm done running from him now. even though we've only ever seen her be cripplingly afraid of the idea of him. So there's at no point does she face him and face that fear. She's just like, oh, I'm done with that fear. Oh, now I can go stare him in the face and spit on his body. Exactly.

In writing this, I just realized why Tyler Perry chose the name Judith, literally just right now. And I feel like Michael's going to figure it out before I even finish writing this sentence. Reading it in his case. Judith. Judith. It's like, oh, it's biblical and it's either like a reference to Jesus or it's a reference to like Lilith. No.

No, I'm wrong. Oh, wow, I'm stupider than Jabby thinks I am. No. I thought you would have picked up on it. Judith sounds like extremely close to the word Judas. Judas. Oh, that I should have known that. You're right.

That's a good point. The HIV thing still throws me for a loop. And it's twice this was used in a Tyler Perry film. And I don't usually get armchair SJW about anything, but it does kind of bother me because people with HIV have to live with that stigma forever attached to it. Medicine is so much better today so that you can live a relatively normal life,

even if you have it. It would have been absolutely stunning if Bryce decided he wanted to be with Melinda anyway because of her character as a person. Barring that, just take it out, just take out the HIV. It doesn't really help. It's used as an easy jump pad to kibosh. the relationship before the credits roll.

Yeah. That's my feeling about it. No, you actually make a really, really good point because it's suddenly like, oh, now there's a medical reason that they can't stay together. And so Bryce isn't a bad guy for not getting back with Judith. Yeah. He's just, you know, doing what's best for, and I, there's still a part of me in watching the movie that was like, I understand why he didn't stay with her even outside of the HIV.

Yeah. But it does kind of feel like a final, I don't know, like. Nail in the coffin? Yeah, a final nail in the coffin and also like a final nail in the coffin and also like a final like middle finger lightning bolt from God of like ha ha you stepped out of your marriage now you have this life-changing disease you know makes your relationships different with everybody so it felt like a little extra like too much too much whipped cream on top of the like suffering Sunday I would have to imagine that that actually happened to a friend of his because he used it twice yeah like that

exact same idea you step out of your marriage you're right you know there was character stuff left largely unexplored, I say the example I'm about to say, fully aware that perhaps Tyler Perry gave what he felt was just enough. But there was a moment where Judith and Harley were fighting and he wanted his medicine. She broke him psychologically for a moment and it felt like a stone was left unturned, which was an opportunity for us to understand how life can take a... Yeah. It's like, well, my whole thing is how life can take an innocent young boy and turn him into a garbage person like Harley. Yeah. I do remember that moment and I remember being like, oh wait, his medicine, are we going to, like, talk about...

Well, it's the HIV medicine, I guess. I'm assuming it's HIV meds, but it was before it was revealed that he had HIV meds. And so I was thinking, like, oh, maybe this is, like, a mental health thing. Like, he needs his meds to, like, stay normal and things like that. Or, you know, I remember picking up on it and kind of, like, it's sticking in my brain and going, oh, this is, like, perhaps an interesting little detail of Harley that we're going to get, and then we didn't really address it at all. Yeah.

Yeah. Everything said and done. The film stayed with me. I don't know if it will be for years, but it stayed with me enough to want to talk about it some more. There you go. And also, someone tried to catfish me. You guys, have a good one.