Movie Review: Acrimony (2018)

Summary: A faithful wife, tired of standing by her devious husband, is enraged when it becomes clear she has been betrayed.

There will be spoilers because I don’t care.

Pros:

Leading Characters. I don’t think any of these characters are that interesting apart from the two leads, nor do I think the acting is that great throughout the movie. I will give a shout out to Ajiona Alexus as Young Melinda, she is great with her facial expressions and you do sympathize with her.

• Taraji is always a Win. Taraji P. Henson is a very good actress and I generally think she does a great job in her roles. I think with the writing she was given, she managed to elevate in certain places throughout the movie. The narration (while I didn’t like it) was humorous in some areas and you can tell that she was truly affected by what was going on with her. I think Taraji is very engaging to watch even when she’s playing crazy.

• Lyriq Bent as Robert. It’s kind of weird but while the character was mostly crap, Lyriq is really good at this role. He’s this man who is down on his luck and he just keeps trying to make this battery thing work and you can tell he really wants it too, but he’s so narrow focused on his own problems that he doesn’t see what he’s doing to his wife.

The Idea of the Story. The whole woman scorned thing is okay, I mean we’ve seen it many times before and this isn’t anything different but the idea of watching this woman stand by her man for a long time and then finally let it go and the things he promised are given to someone else, all that’s fine. I wouldn’t mind it so much if the execution was good… I guess I’m getting ahead of myself.

Cons:

The Narration.I won’t say I hate narration but I HATE unnecessary narration. We first see them in court and then we see Melinda in therapy and she’s talking about her feelings. We then get to see her entire backstory with Robert and Taraji is narrating it while she’s telling her therapist. I usually dislike this setup because NOW we get to hear her tell us her feelings and thoughts instead of allowing us to live in the moment! THERE WAS TOO MUCH NARRATION! Gah it was so annoying. You want me to feel bad for her but you are literally telling me in the narration that she KNEW something was up! She kept saying “Con man!” because YES I know she’s telling it from her point of view, but dang Tyler Perry, trust your audience to get that from Ajiona Alexus’ acting. There’s a part where young Melinda sees Robert’s home and they have an intimate moment and we can CLEARLY SEE that he’s affecting her with his Nina Simone and his charisma, WE DIDN’T NEED THE NARRATION TO TELL US THAT! It was super annoying.

Over the top. Sometimes things being over the top is fine but it does not work in this movie. It’s ridiculous to be honest. They wanted me to feel bad for Melinda, which I did for a little while. It wasn’t until the crazy stuff later on that I was like “nope”. I mean, in the beginning when she was younger, she found out Robert was cheating and she literally ran her jeep into his mobile home until it tipped over. She busted her face, got internal bleeding and had to get her uterus removed. I mean… why? Why couldn’t it just have been her breaking an arm or leg, or hurt her neck? I mean jeez. Then later, after she gets the divorce, she decides she wants to sue him for half of everything once he gets his battery off the ground. Look, I get it, you were there the entire time he’s been failing and you feel like you should get something, I get it, but listen, you divorced him and he gave all the money you spent on him and more. I know it’s not necessarily all that you probably deserve but it wasn’t like he divorced you after he made it big ya know? Plus, I’m sure seeing him give everything he said he was going to give you to someone else had to be upsetting, I get it. Completely. But you stalk his fiancée on Facebook and leave threatening messages and then try and sue him. I mean what? lol it doesn’t make sense and I feel no sympathy anymore. If anything, I just feel bad for you and not in a good way. If the movie wanted that then great job but if they wanted me to feel for Melinda lol psht. Just ridiculous.

The Last Two Acts. I think the first act with the young versions and up until the divorce was fine. Painful but fine. When they get a divorce and she sees that he is now living the life he always said he wanted to live she loses it. Now, I don’t mind her being upset and the whole “woman scorned” thing but wow, the movie begins to take this break neck pace where it starts to get embarrassing and my friend kept rolling over because it was so painful to watch. It was like a car wreck. It went from this woman feeling betrayed to this “misery” thing and it was just… ugh ridiculous.

The Women. I don’t know what Tyler Perry’s issue is with black women, but literally all of the women in this movie are just out of their minds. Melinda of course has her issues that come full force later in the movie and I think it’s ridiculous that no one in her life addressed it beforehand. I know the black community has a hard time with mental health but still, considering the fact that Melinda knew her father had the same issue as her, it must have been mentioned. Why not more often by other people? They all seemed to know that she had this anger issue, so why hasn’t it ever been helped before? It’s a movie, she can go to therapy. Then her sisters were just stereotypes. Brenda was the one who just knew all the answers and was constantly putting Robert down and always always in Melinda’s business. I know she’s the oldest sister and she was protective but there are boundaries ma’am and you keep crossing them. The second sister, she was so timid… I guess? She was the other extreme to the oldest sister where she was always so mellow and tried to be the peace keeper but she always sided with Brenda. Then you have the lady that Robert ends up with and at first I was like okay, because she was like “I didn’t know about Melinda” when they were younger but she for some reason, started watching all of the videos he’d sent over the years (even though he was JUST issued a restraining order from the company) and you can clearly see her falling in love with him again and I’m like… girl lol, just because he’s brilliant doesn’t mean he’s not crazy. I just can’t. The only sane one was the friend.

Bad Acting. Outside of our leads the acting was horrible. I thought the friend was fine but the sisters, the other woman and the husbands were all just bad.

Overall, this movie is so bad I could barely finish it. I wanted to give up. I knew it was going to be bad but I hoped that it wouldn’t be so terrible since the two lead actors are good at their jobs, which they are. There’s nothing wrong with telling the story of a woman who wasted her life with someone who didn’t give her everything and more that she gave. I get it. I really do. Anyone who can relate, sure, but there’s a line between you feeling like you are owed and then just going crazy. It’s just so over the top that it’s not even good or interesting storytelling. It makes the main character who we’re supposed to sympathize with look bad and as the audience, I no longer care. The acting is bad minus, the women in this movie are stereotypes and terrible. The last two acts of the film are rushed and full of bad writing. I just can’t. I’m done with this movie lol.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars.

Have you seen Acrimony? What did you think of it? Let me know your thoughts on the movie down in the comments below. If you liked it, tell me, I’m curious.

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