A collision of worlds when two African-American families from divergent socioeconomic backgrounds get together one weekend in Martha's Vineyard for a wedding. Taylor is caught in a six-month whirlwind romance that includes nights at the opera, long-stem roses and live performances from R&B crooner El DeBarge and proposes to Watson at the beginning of the film. Watson, who has to move to China for business, happily accepts. But doubts about their impending marriage begin to seep in when they confront difficult future in-laws, pressure from friends, and revelations of dirty secrets.
Genres: Comedy Running Time: 1 hr. 53 min. Release Date: May 6th, 2011 (limited) MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some sexual content and language. Distributor: Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group
Cast And Credits
Starring:
Angela Bassett, Paula Patton, Laz Alonso, Loretta Devine, Meagan Good
Directed by:
Salim Akil
Produced by:
T. D. Jakes, Curtis Wallace, Tracey Edmonds
Angela Bassett and Loretta Devine star as feuding future in-laws from the opposite side of the tracks in director Salim Akil's comedy.
The battle lines are drawn far too quickly in the uptown-meets-downtown comedy Jumping the Broom. The film imagines that two African-American families meet for the first time at a wedding on Martha’s Vineyard where the contrast in class divisions is all the more acute. But the two matriarchs are at each other’s throats on first sight so any subtlety or nuances fly right out those French doors.
Angela Bassett and Loretta Devine are superb, distinguished actresses, yet each is asked to overdo every moment with permanent scowls and body language more suitable to Mortal Kombat. The film’s makers seem unduly anxious that nearly every line of dialogue and plot development drive home the class differences between the two families for fear that â€" well, what, that audiences won’t get it? The real class differences on display in Jumping the Broom are condescending Hollywood filmmakers who distrust an audiences’ intelligence.
The TriStar release may open with decent box-office numbers thanks to a talented, award-winning cast. Certainly the target audience of black Americans will contribute significantly to those numbers, but it’s hard to say how well this story, which could take place within any community, will crossover to larger audiences.
The comfortably bourgeois Watson family throws open the doors of its magnificent Martha’s Vineyard compound to the blue-collar, Brooklyn-based Taylors when daughter Sabrina (Precious’ Paula Patton) rushes into an engagement to Wall Street up-and-comer Jason (Laz Alonso). It’s rushed because she will soon take a job in China. And then there’s her unusual personal quirk â€" after a love life of some promiscuity, she has vowed to God that she now will “save her cookies†until after her marriage to Mr. Right.
In another movie, that vow and this couple might make interesting protagonists. But in this movie, they are almost dress extras at the main event, the fight between Sabrina’s Old Money mom Claudine (Bassett) and Jason’s postal worker mom, who might as well be called “Going Postal†Pam (Devine).
The families have never met, which doesn’t prevent Claudine from fantasizing, perhaps even wishing, “They could be awful.†Nor does it prevent Pam from uttering a blatant insult the moment she meets Claudine and her husband Greg (Brian Stokes Mitchell). She takes it back right away, but ceases to do so as further and graver insults spill from her mouth.
Perhaps betraying their own snobbery, Elizabeth Hunter and Arlene Gibbs’ screenplay insists that their urban working-class characters are uncouth social disasters, except for Jason, of course, who is the only member of his family with a higher education. Yes, the writers do endow their rich, well-educated characters with a few flaws, but these owe more to the need for family secrets to spill out at a dramatically opportune moments.
Promising subplots never fully develop as the matriarchal battle so consumes the movie. These include a bridesmaid (Meagan Good) with a penchant for picking wrong men who hooks up with the wedding banquet chef (Gary Dourdan) and a university student (Romeo Miller) with an eye for Pam’s much older best friend (Tasha Smith). Not to mention the one live-wire in the Watson family, Aunt Geneva (Valarie Pettiford), who can belt out songs on cue and has a shady enough past to deserve her own movie.
Angela Bassett and Loretta Devine star as feuding future in-laws from the opposite side of the tracks in director Salim Akil's comedy.
The TriStar release may open with decent box-office numbers thanks to a talented, award-winning cast. Certainly the target audience of black Americans will contribute significantly to those numbers, but it’s hard to say how well this story, which could take place within any community, will crossover to larger audiences.
Perhaps betraying their own snobbery, Elizabeth Hunter and Arlene Gibbs’ screenplay insists that their urban working-class characters are uncouth social disasters, except for Jason, of course, who is the only member of his family with a higher education. Yes, the writers do endow their rich, well-educated characters with a few flaws, but these owe more to the need for family secrets to spill out at a dramatically opportune moments.
A few moments to shine are handed to comedian DeRay Davis, playing Jason’s cousin, and another comedian-actor, Mike Epps, as Jason’s uncle.
