The subject film is known as Why Did I Get Married too? The genre of the film is comedy-drama, and it was produced in the year 2010. The main stars of in the film are Janet Jackson, who plays Patricia Agnew, Tyler Perry, whose cast name is Terry Brock and Tasha Smith who features as Angela Williams. The film’s objective is to convey a message to the viewers that all the marriage challenges are universal, and these include desperate job hunt, straying spouse and even a haunting personal loss. The film is educative and realistic since it depicts the usual pitfalls and challenges associated with the marriage institution.
Discussion
The film features eight friends who are trying to cope with marital life challenges. The four couples are gathered in Bahamas for a re-union that would last for a week. The main subject of the reunion revolved around the couples updates and news concerning their relationships and their lives in general. There is an unprecedented interruption in the course of their reunion when one of the ex-husband to a character called Sheila arrives hoping to win his ex back following his marriage resolution.
The couples discover that they are all prone to fidelity and commitment issues. For example Angela finds it challenging to trust her husband who is currently a well-known television news anchor. The other relationship is that of Dianne and Terry, which is strained because of raising their kids. Patricia, who is a psychologist eventually, exposes the negative traits of her marriage to Garvin, which seems to be perfect. When the couples return home, each of them has to make a decision regarding the right actions to take regarding the marriage issues.
Some of the choices that they are forced to make are between doubt and faith and between blame and forgiveness (Books, LLC, 2010).The film is set in a normal social setting involving a group of married couples. This setting greatly contributes to the general atmosphere since the viewer ultimately expects the key subject or issue to revolve around relationships and challenges encountered in marriages. This implies that the writer’s subject is rather too obvious and the viewer is not lefts in suspense. It is easy for one to correctly make a guess of the main idea from the very beginning of the film (Lionsgate, 2010). Despite this demerit, it is clear that such topics are educative since they are the fundamental issues that are facing the society especially regarding the marriage institution.
The characters features in the film are realistic since each and every one of them has their own lives. There is Angela who is very much convinced that her husband, Marcus is cheating on her. There is also Sheila who is worried that her husband, Troy is keeping his emotions and feelings to himself. Diane is the other character who suddenly has a weird glow about her. There is also Mike, Sheila’s ex-husband who seems to regret the way he treated Sheila in their past marriage.
Gavin, fails to figure our why his wife, Patricia finds it hard to open up to him. All these issues are universal issues that are encountered by married couples in day-to-day lives. This clearly shows that there is nothing new in the movie but the daily hurdles of life and marriage challenges. The audience usually expects to view something novel and entertaining. Though some might find this being educative, it is clear that many would end up getting stressed since this acts as a reminder of what they have to go through in their lives (Books, LLC, 2010).The characters clearly depict their roles in the film.
Patricia firmly stands on her ground and makes a decision of breaking up with Garvin since their marriage is not working. This comes as shocking news to Garvin who did not expect Patricia to announce about their divorce that soon. Garvin of the other hand reiterates by getting drunk and comforting Patricia. He clearly depicts his role as that of someone who does not want to accept the reality and instead decides to fight back. Angela has an intuition that her husband is cheating and thus decides to spy on him.
She is however disappointed when she realizes that the intuition was wrong. Dianne, Sheila, Troy, Mike and Terry have all played their parts accordingly (Ebony Magazine, 2008).Though the story is realistic and seemingly entertaining, it lacks the interesting bit since it focuses on the obvious themes. The writer seems to focus on one theme and sticking to it in the entire story. From the very beginning, the audiences kind of know what to expect in the entire story. It fails to portray suspense, which is essential in keeping the viewers glued to the screen. It revolves around four couples lamenting about the tribulations and challenges encountered in their marriage and lives in general.
These challenges range from raising kids, unyielding job search, fidelity and trust issues and even jealousy (Rawden, 2010). All these issues are the normal issues that couples in the society and the entire community has to deal with. The ending of the story is very much predictable since it revolves against weighing options between blame and forgiveness as well as doubt and trust. Choosing one of the choices is what marks the outcome or end result of the couples’ marriages.The main theme of the film is marriage and relationships. The film begins with four couples having a reunion whose aim is to focus on their unique marriage experiences.
The experience of each couple has been clearly depicted and each character seems to face a unique issue. Later on, each of the couples has to deal with their own issues independently and make autonomous decisions. The issues of distrust, fidelity, doubt and job searching are universal issues that are encountered in the institution of marriage. The writer attempts to show ways that different couples and individuals cope with these challenges and problems. Some may opt for a divorce while some may opt to forgive their loved ones and go on with their normal lives.
Patricia makes a decision to divorce Garvin, who is adamantly against it and decides to fight back. In the end, Garvin dies and Patricia has to deal with her loss. A similar situation occurs in a normal social setting where people have to deal with the loss of their loved ones (Rawden, 2010).According to Ebony Magazine (2008), some critics have argued that the theme of marriage is a rather too obvious theme to base a film. They feel that depiction of the problems and challenges encountered in marriage does not create stylistic features that make the story captivating.
The reason behind this is that viewers are already aware of what to expect since they clearly understand all the pitfalls pertaining to marriage institution. I however disagree with this notion because though people are ware of the many challenges facing the marriage institution, Most of them do not know how they can best deal or handle the challenging situations. This film clearly depicts ways and possible solutions to the challenges and how such marriages can be fixed.
The music collection used in the film is a nice collection that clearly conforms to the theme or message conveyed. Marriage and love being the key themes of the films have been clearly depicted through the use of love songs. These songs are great to listen to in the company of loved ones. One of the songs is by Anita Baker and its titled “You belong to me”. This song clearly helps in creating a mood of love and togetherness in the film. This is especially true for the couples who hold a feeling of true love. This is what drives the couples to open up and fix their marital challenges. The truth is what finally sets the couples free as each of them speaks out what is in their minds.
Patricia and Garvin’s marriage is the only one that terminates with a sad ending following Garvin’s death through an accident (Rawden, 2010).The use of visual imagery such as light and dark contributed to the story setting. The story begins with a reunion that seems to be a happy one and there is extensive use of light due to signify the joyful and calm atmosphere. The lighting suddenly becomes darker due to the unraveling of events. The couples start fighting over their tense relationships and even financial issues.
This clearly shows the essence of visual imagery in contributing to the story setting (Lionsgate, 2010).Some movie reviews indicate that the movie is irrelevant in our lives since it does not address other pressing issues other than marriage and relationship issues. Critics feel that the film ought to have focused on various other issues facing our society (Rawden, 2010). I however think that the writer made a wise decision by choosing to focus on the challenges encountered in marriage and relationships.
In the current society, there are so many divorce cases in courts and so many marriages are facing hardships and challenges. Majority of couples do not have any idea on how they can deal with the day-to-day hurdles and problems. Most of them are afraid of opening up in dealing with their innermost fears and feelings. This film is helpful to such people because, who would be much encouraged to open up and deal with the fears and challenges facing them. The film is educative and realistic since it depicts the usual pitfalls and challenges associated with the marriage institution.
In conclusion, it is evident that though the film’s story line is seemingly obvious to the audience, it is generally educative to the society since it serves as a guide to solving the commonly experience marriage hurdles and problems. Moreover, the characters are realistic and clearly present the real issues as they are. This film ought to be viewed by the general public especially couples facing the normal relationship challenges and issues.
References
Books, LLC (2010). Films Directed by Tyler Perry (Study Guide). Why Did I Get Married? Why did I Get Married too? Madea’s Family Reunion, Daddy’s Little Girls. General Books LLC.
Lionsgate (2010). Why Did I Get Married? Metacritic. Retrieved from http://www.metacritic.com/movie/why-did-i-get-married-too on March 7, 2011
Rawden, M (2010). Movie Review: Why Did I Get Married Too? Cinema blend.comRetrieved from http://www.cinemablend.com/reviews/Why-Did-I-Get-Married-Too-4555.html on March 7, 2011
Ebony Magazine (2008). Becoming Tyler. Vol 62(12). Johnson Publishing Company.
