The great Tyler Perry debate

Daddy’s Little Girls

Geoff: Fortunately Perry took a break from Madea with his next film, and that’s not the only sign he was trying to do something a little more mature. It’s also the first film he made without giving himself a part to play. That puts the focus squarely on his stars, Idris Elba and Gabrielle Union, and they respond with terrific performances.

But Perry’s storytelling is still pretty sloppy and overly complicated--did we really need a drug dealer subplot in the middle of this love story?

At least he finally created a male character who wasn’t a wealthy misogynist pig or a working-class himbo torn from the pages of a trashy romance novel. Elba’s character is working class and dreamy, but he’s also got some depth that comes out in his struggles to be a good father to his three girls.