Wealthy socialite Charlotte Cartwright (Kathy Bates) and her dear friend Alice Pratt (Alfre Woodard), a working class woman of high ideals, have enjoyed a lasting friendship throughout many years. Suddenly, their lives become mired in turmoil as their adult children's extramarital affairs, unethical business practices and a dark paternity secret threaten to derail family fortunes and unravel the lives of all involved. Alice's self-centered newlywed daughter Andrea (Sanaa Lathan) is betraying her trusting husband Chris (Rockmond Dunbar) by engaging in a torrid affair with her boss and mother’s best friend’s son William (Cole Hauser). While cheating on his wife Jillian (Kadee Strickland) with a string of ongoing dalliances with his mistress Andrea, William's true focus is to replace the COO of his mother’s lucrative construction corporation. Meanwhile, Alice's other daughter Pam (Taraji Henson), a kind but no nonsense woman married to a hard working construction worker (Tyler Perry), tries to steer the family in a more positive direction.While paternity secrets, marital infidelity, greed and unsavory business dealings threaten to derail both families, Charlotte and Alice decide to take a breather from it all by making a cross-country road trip in which they rediscover themselves and possibly find a way to save their families from ruin.
This movie is just like Tyler Perry's other "non-Madea" movies. They are great in terms of character studies and what not and are watchable to a certain extent. For the most part, they end up just kind of being there. They are the textbook "what else could I be doing instead of watching this movie" movies. Its not that the movie is bad because if you force yourself to care, the characters are all very distinct and well developed and all the relationship issues within the movie are very realistic, but its like each one is a remake of the previous one. My advice . . . . stick to comedies with Madea. It just seems to liven them up a lot more.
I'd lukewarmly recommend this movie to anyone who was honestly interested in it from the commercial. Outside of that - there is no need to take the time or money to watch this and just catch it when you are flipping through the channels in a couple of months on cable.
This movie is just like Tyler Perry's other "non-Madea" movies. They are great in terms of character studies and what not and are watchable to a certain extent. For the most part, they end up just kind of being there. They are the textbook "what else could I be doing instead of watching this movie" movies. Its not that the movie is bad because if you force yourself to care, the characters are all very distinct and well developed and all the relationship issues within the movie are very realistic, but its like each one is a remake of the previous one. My advice . . . . stick to comedies with Madea. It just seems to liven them up a lot more.
I'd lukewarmly recommend this movie to anyone who was honestly interested in it from the commercial. Outside of that - there is no need to take the time or money to watch this and just catch it when you are flipping through the channels in a couple of months on cable.
