MOVIE REVIEW: A C R I M O N Y

Written by Amarachi Ogbonnaya

This movie has been making buzz for a while now and I decided to check it out, guess what I found out? This movie has been out since march, 30th, 2018 and nobody made noise about it until now.

The story line is great, Tyler Perry does know how to cause a storm, I love the man because he knows how to gather public conversations about his movies and this one is not an exception.

Acrimony is about a woman, Melinda (Taraji P. Benson) who gave her all to her husband, Robert (Lyric Bent), who had nothing except his dream project, Battery invention. She worked her ass off doing two jobs to sustain him and his expensive project. He cheated on her  with a girl, Diana (Crystle Stewart) who she almost killed, instead she landed in the hospital, he came begging and she forgave him and took him back. (All these happened before they got married).

Her mother died and left her a house and two million dollars, which she mortgaged and used in sustaining her man and his project, she goes against her sisters' warnings and married him, despite the fact he didn't have a job nor money and kept squandering her money on him, Robert refused to get a  job, graduated from college and came back with an excuse that he was jailed while he was fifteen and thus, as an ex-convict, nobody would hire him.

Years later, after trying to get a firm to have a look at his invention without success, he bumped into his one-night stand, Diana, now an executive at the firm he tried unsuccessfully to get to see his invention. Melinda's sisters and their husbands, while trying to help lift the burden of taking care of her home, got her husband a job as a delivery man at their firm and gave him an order to deliver a parcel to their best customer, on his way, he got a call for an appointment with Diana's boss, Mr. Prescott, leaving everything behind, he went for it and was offered an 800, 000 dollars cheque for the invention and its prototype, he rejected it and went home to an angry wife who has had enough of his philandering, she got info that a lady's purse was found in his car, together with the offer rejection, she divorced him.

Meanwhile, he tried to get a job as a cleaner in a restaurant, but after a while, having gotten used to a woman taking care of him, he reached out to Diana, who rescues him from the street and got a better offer for him from her boss, he engaged her, bought back the house for Melinda and wrote her a generous cheque of ten million dollars for all the stress and all HELL broke loose.

Melinda became bitter and dangerous, while watching them live the life he had promised her, the trip to Paris, the expensive dresses, the LIFE and she became a threat to everyone including herself, as no amount of restraining orders from the court could stop her, she stopped going to work, blamed everybody for advising her to divorce him and went threatening, she died at the end.

Moral I got from the movie:

1. Hell hath no FURY like a woman scorned.

2. There are always RED FLAGS in 'abusive" relationships,  not the abusive is in inverted comma, it is not only when there is domestic violence that the marriage is wrong, when you as the woman is solely responsible for taking care of the home, IT IS WRONG.

3. I like Diana, she is SMART. Ah ah, before you come for me, let me explain it, she didn't do much until she heard they were divorced, how come, the other cheque came in after she heard that?, after he rejected the 800,000, why didn't she persuade her boss?, she knew it was going to be big, she waited for the right moment before striking, she saw a gold mine where others saw a waste.

4. Never date a lazy man; 'He has a dream'wont pay the bills. Don't over labor yourself and come out angry like Melinda character did. The fury was as a result of years of unspoken anger, anger at being left alone to cater for both of them and the BIG dream, she didn't get to eat from, years of working tow jobs to sustain a lazy and broke ass man, he was right when he said, he didn't have anyone in the world except her.

5. Love is not enough to sustain a marriage, infact, it is the first thing that flies out the window, where was love when she was working her ass off to feed him and his dream? where was love when he was ramming into Diana?, where was over when he was collecting those gifts, monies and her essence from her? where was love when he quickly ran into another woman's arms when things started going well for him? where was love when he kept taking her to court for threats?

6. Nobody owes you a dime, even the fate. Be there for yourself and keep going even when all things fail you, do not fail yourself. It was the entity mentality that killed her, "It is my right."

7. Do not, I repeat, do not listen to people, family and strangers alike, tell you want to do about either your marriage or your life, she caused her wahala by herself by listening to her sisters.

8. Life is so unfair, that;s right, but when it throws you sour things, let the strength come from within to make better things out of them and give it back to life, that way, you win.

9. Never give up on your DREAMS. He had a dream, no one saw it, believed in it, but he did and kept pushing until it worked. Yes, he used people, that's right, he did all he had to do, he is lazy, yes, but his dream was valid, so was his struggle. He gave up things, like when he was going to deliver parcels to their clients and got that call of appointment with Mr. Prescott, he left it and went for his dream, is he a user, yes, did it work, hell yeah.

10. ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR GUT FEELING, there is a reason it is there.

Let me stop here, Taraji P. Benson, as usual, delivered an excellent character. I watched out with sharp eyes for errors in her role, but she played me and did an excellent job, the production team of the movie gave their best, I never find fault in Tyler Perry's movies, the guy is just too good and has an excellent team. The movie itself is a tale of when it is your time, it is your time. It came out on 30th of March and, August, people are still talking about it, kudos to the entire team of this movie, you showed the world that black indeed has talent and always excel marvelously at what we do.

I would give it a nine over ten, I always have the last mark, its for my editorial eye 😄😄😄😄😄😄.