If you’re reading this, I can only assume you’re looking to hate-watch something laughably terrible with your friends. If that’s the case, then you’re in luck: this is the film. Like Mea Culpa before it, Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black is filled with caricatures, cliches, and just generally awful filmmaking. In one scene, to show the passage of time, Perry literally keeps the camera on the clock and fades it into the next hour. But also like Mea Culpa, Divorce in the Black features an otherwise great performance from its leading woman—in this case, it’s Meagan Good. Good lends her abused character more complexity than the film deserves. Like plenty of victims, she’s both afraid of and in love with her despicable husband, though the film, unfortunately, refuses to dive into that nuance and instead chalks everything up to bad and good, Christian and un-Christian. Neither domestic abuse nor general filmmaking is taken seriously here, so there’s no reason to give this film the time of day too.
Ava, a young bank professional is devastated when her husband Dallas abandons a marriage she is determined to fight for until fate intervenes, revealing Dallas' wicked deeds that have trashed their marriage, and once upon a time sabotaged Ava's destiny to be loved by her true soulmate.
When Dallas (Cory Hardrict) tells Ava (Meagan Good) he wants a divorce, she goes back to her parents' house and rekindles a flame with an old friend. Upset, Dallas becomes increasingly violent as he blocks Ava from pursuing a life outside their own.
A question that critics can’t stop asking: what is Tyler Perry doing? Some have gone so far as to suggest that his film studio is a cover-up money laundering scheme. I won’t be too shocked if that turns out to be true.
“I can fix him,” girl, fix yourself first.
