BEFORE: Well, this sort of worked out for me - I mean, what do you do after you graduate from school, but go on a trip? Summer's here, right, time to hit the road. This film is about four women going to the Essence Festival, which is in July, it turns out. I couldn't expect to get lucky again like I did with the timing of the Coca-Cola 600, could I? And I was off by about three weeks on the Met Gala - but I can only do what I can do.
Tiffany Haddish carries over again from "Night School".
THE PLOT: When four lifelong friends travel to New Orleans for the annual Essence Festival, sisterhoods are rekindled, wild sides are rediscovered, and there's enough drinking, dancing, brawling and romancing to make the Big Easy blush.
AFTER: I guess it's Diversity Week here at the Movie Year, since I started off with "Crazy Rich Asians" and then there was the culture clash between the Legos and the Duplos, and that led me into a chain of African-American themed films. But the topics have come with their own set of conundrums for me - like with "Ocean's Eight", where a team of women got together to prove they could pull off a heist just as well as a team of male thieves. Umm, congratulations? Then "Crazy Rich Asians" showed that white people don't have a monopoly on acting like spoiled, bratty millennials, that rich Asian people can be just as obnoxious as Caucasian ones - again, I'm not sure exactly what we're celebrating there. And a few weeks back I watched "Green Book", which put a different spin on things, with a white Italian guy as the under-educated driver and muscle, and the black man as the well-educated passenger.
"Night School" sort of represented a return to the old ways, with the central character an African-American man who's embarrassed about his lack of education, who tries to hide it with lies and charm. But to be fair, the other students trying to get their GEDs represented a cross-section of skin colors and cultures, plus there was almost an attempt at reverse racism in the depiction of a black teen almost bullying a white teen - but since that white teen later became the school principal and tried to get his revenge on the black teen as an adult, it sort of negated any progress. (Let's face it, "Night School" was really all over the place, the plot was shooting in many directions at once.)
But this brings me to "Girls Trip", which again isn't really the type of film that I've sought out over the years, but it pitched itself as a sort of an urban version of "Bridesmaids", and I put it on a DVD with "Rough Night", so those two films must have been running on cable around the same time. The madcap "events spin out of control" genre has been popular ever since "The Hangover", possibly even before. But this leads me back to my original questions about whether or not this constitutes "progress" - why make a film about a group of African-American women behaving badly? Is this just to show that they can be just as raunchy and sinful as the men? What purpose does this serve, and couldn't they aim a bit higher?
In the same vein, I'm not sure that the movie portrays African-American women in the best light if they're always just ONE snide comment away from fighting with each other, or with someone else. These four women are in New Orleans to have a good time, but it doesn't take much to push them over the edge - when one is confronted with another's cheating husband, she quickly smashes a bottle in a fancy hotel's bar and threatens him with the sharp shards. Wow, she must have been very close to the edge to begin with, right? This is not going to help elevate the cause of black women, if they fall back into "street fighting" mode so easily.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Ryan, who's a famous "lifestyle guru" (which is somehow a viable career these days...well, at least she's not an "influencer"...) and she's the one with the cheating husband. Now, in years past, it was easy enough to know what to do with a straying husband - either forgive him, or throw him to the curb. But Ryan's situation is more complicated since there's a major retailer that wants to develop a fashion line/talk show (or something...) line for men and women, based on her marriage, since her husband's a famous ex-NFL star - and any news of his affair could affect this deal. If news of her marital troubles were to surface, that would be "bad for her brand". Ah, the problems of modern life, right? You can be crying in private, but you'd better look happy on Facebook.
So let me get this straight - Ryan and her husband have some sort of non-controlling "modern" style relationship, where there's a certain amount of sexual freedom (or so it seems...) but as soon as she learns of an actual affair, she moves to shut that down. Only she can't do so publicly, because that would admit to the world that there's a problem, that the relationship isn't 100% perfect. You just can't have it both ways, you can't try to live outside the rules and then scramble to apply the rules when you change your mind. Besides, what's the greater sin, turning a blind eye to the cheating, or covering it up so nobody finds out about it so you can cash in? I'm going with the latter here, and again, I have to wonder if this constitutes progress or not.
Besides, we live in a modern world, where a lot of celebrities, of all races, have wives, girlfriends and "baby mamas" all at the same time. This doesn't have the same stigma that it used to - but this film can't decide if it wants to move the complicated cause of human relationships forward, or snap them back to the Stone Age. I mean, the husband's side-piece clearly seems to be doing some gold-digging here, so our sympathies are supposed to be with Ryan, but does Ryan really deserve them? What's more important to her, saving her marriage or cashing that check? I think we know the answer to that one. Then there's her own mental health to consider, which doesn't even seem to be a consideration here - she should dump his ass, plain and simple, which would be much more constructive for her. But it takes her nearly the whole movie to realize this, and remove herself from this clearly toxic situation. Maybe I'm over-simplifying things here, but the whole "stay together for the paycheck" thing seems rather repulsive when viewed from afar, regardless of anyone's color.
Much fervor was made in the press about the "grapefruit trick", which involves a certain sex act performed with the aid of a fruit with a hole cut in it - and here it seems someone's trying to outdo "American Pie" - but I have to call a NITPICK POINT on this one, because anyone with an iota of common sense would be able to predict a terrible outcome here, since all citrus fruits contain juice that is highly acidic - Jesus, what did you girls THINK was going to happen? People use lime and lemon juice to make ceviche, which basically cooks shrimp and vegetables without using heat - so maybe a citrus fruit isn't going to be the best thing to put on your junk. Just saying.
Also starring Regina Hall (last seen in "Vacation"), Queen Latifah (last heard in "Ice Age: Collision Course"), Jada Pinkett Smith (last heard in "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted"), Larenz Tate (last seen in "Ray"), Mike Colter (last seen in "Zero Dark Thirty"), Kate Walsh (last seen in "Under the Tuscan Sun"), Kofi Siriboe, Deborah Ayorinde, Lara Grice, Tonea Stewart, Mike Epps (last seen in "The Hangover Part III"), Donna Biscoe (also carrying over from "Night School"), Robert Miano, with cameos from Mariah Carey (last seen in "The Bachelor"), Ne-Yo, Faith Evans, Morris Chestnut (last seen in "The Last Boy Scout"), Gabrielle Dennis, MC Lyte, New Edition, Common (last seen in "Ocean's Eight"), Estelle, Sean Combs (last seen in "Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives"), Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds (ditto), Carla Hall, Sunny Hostin, William Levy, Doug E. Fresh, Mannie Fresh, Maxwell, Mase, Johnny Gill, Bell Biv Devoe, Ava DuVernay, Lorraine Toussaint, Jaina Lee Ortiz, Terry McMillan, Iyanla Vanzant.
RATING: 5 out of 10 self-help books
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