With an extremely low score of '27' on Metacritic, Tyler Perry's Temptation was universally panned by the critics. On Metacritic, Perry managed only 1 positive review, 2 mixed and 11 negatives. Still, the first week the picture came out, it managed a #3 ranking at the box office. Based on his own stage play, Perry has been quoted as saying that the film version is the best thing he's ever written. In reality, Temptation is no different than most of the soap operas out there today. It's a cheap little story, with thin characters and an over-moralizing plot.
The protagonist is Judith, a marriage counselor, who provides a cautionary tale of infidelity to a client, pretending that the subject is her sister, but is actually her own life story. During the overlong narration at the beginning of the film, Judith's story is explained in a flashback that serves as most of the film's narrative. Judith married her childhood sweetheart, Brice, who works in a pharmacy. They supposedly have a picture book relationship but it appears Judith is a bit of a social climber, desiring to start her own match making business.
Meanwhile, Judith's actual job is working for Janice (Vanessa Williams), who runs a high-end match making agency, seeking clients of substantial means. I found it difficult to believe that Judith could have lasted more than a few days there, as she constantly makes it clear that she resents working at the tawdry agency. Kim Kardashian, plays her bitchy co-worker, Ava, who criticizes her for dressing too conservatively and the two exchange barbs until Judith's sudden about face at the midpoint, when she embraces a new world of 'depravity'.
For most of the film, Judith is a rigid, unlikeable character, egged on by her mother 'Miss Sarah', an old-fashioned, fire and brimstone Christian, who predicts her daughter's fall from grace. Perry can do little with Brice, a cookie-cutter 'nice guy', who exhibits few personality traits of interest. All Perry seems to know about Brice's involvement in the pharmacy business is that he must constantly toil, taking care of the 'inventory' which makes him tired, and less attentive to Judith when gets home. Note that it's really irrelevant what kind of work Brice does, as it could be any type of business. Perry is not concerned with fleshing out his characters by focusing on the idiosyncratic details of their lives—only the tawdry plot which will be discussed in a moment.
The main plot of Temptation involves Harley, a social media magnate, who is one of Janice's clients at her match making agency, and who she hopes will invest in her company. Harley hardly seems like a Bill Gates type but more like a slick player from the sports world (note again, the characters' professions are irrelevant and interchangeable). He ends up falling for Judith and two thirds of the movie seems more like a story ripped from a Harlequin Romance, with Harley courting Judith at such venues as his private jet, breaking her down and eventually seducing her.
From true romance, Perry shifts gears in the third act, attempting to turn his soap opera into a sordid thriller, a la Brian de Palma. Suddenly Harley has morphed into a drug-addicted monster and sucks Judith into the sleazy club world (not very good for his image as social media magnate but more believable as a superstar pro football player). Harley the monster throws Judith's mother to the ground while she's conducting a prayer service with her friends and then ends up beating Judith up, who Brice saves after his co-worker at the pharmacy reveals that Harley did the same thing to her and gave her HIV.
The worst part of Temptation is of course Mr. Perry's proclivity toward old-fashioned moralizing. An affair in Mr. Perry's mind can only result in the worst type of consequences. The woman ends up with the 'devil' himself (the repulsive Harley) and is then scarred for the rest of her life. As Judith hobbles down the street at film's end, the scene reminds me of the nightmare sequence from 'It's a Wonderful Life', where Mary Bailey ends up a spinster, working at the public library. Here too, Judith will remain a spinster, joining her boring mother, at church services. Perry takes the side of moralizing Christians, promoting the dictum: 'if you cheat, you pay'.
Like most melodramas of this ilk, Tyler Perry doesn't know how to create characters that resemble real people. They are only cheap cardboard cutouts, placed inside a narrative that's been done to death, for years. The fact that this film was financially successful, only goes to show that the tastes of the majority of film goers out there today, are on a very low, aesthetic level.
The protagonist is Judith, a marriage counselor, who provides a cautionary tale of infidelity to a client, pretending that the subject is her sister, but is actually her own life story. During the overlong narration at the beginning of the film, Judith's story is explained in a flashback that serves as most of the film's narrative. Judith married her childhood sweetheart, Brice, who works in a pharmacy. They supposedly have a picture book relationship but it appears Judith is a bit of a social climber, desiring to start her own match making business.
Meanwhile, Judith's actual job is working for Janice (Vanessa Williams), who runs a high-end match making agency, seeking clients of substantial means. I found it difficult to believe that Judith could have lasted more than a few days there, as she constantly makes it clear that she resents working at the tawdry agency. Kim Kardashian, plays her bitchy co-worker, Ava, who criticizes her for dressing too conservatively and the two exchange barbs until Judith's sudden about face at the midpoint, when she embraces a new world of 'depravity'.
For most of the film, Judith is a rigid, unlikeable character, egged on by her mother 'Miss Sarah', an old-fashioned, fire and brimstone Christian, who predicts her daughter's fall from grace. Perry can do little with Brice, a cookie-cutter 'nice guy', who exhibits few personality traits of interest. All Perry seems to know about Brice's involvement in the pharmacy business is that he must constantly toil, taking care of the 'inventory' which makes him tired, and less attentive to Judith when gets home. Note that it's really irrelevant what kind of work Brice does, as it could be any type of business. Perry is not concerned with fleshing out his characters by focusing on the idiosyncratic details of their lives—only the tawdry plot which will be discussed in a moment.
The main plot of Temptation involves Harley, a social media magnate, who is one of Janice's clients at her match making agency, and who she hopes will invest in her company. Harley hardly seems like a Bill Gates type but more like a slick player from the sports world (note again, the characters' professions are irrelevant and interchangeable). He ends up falling for Judith and two thirds of the movie seems more like a story ripped from a Harlequin Romance, with Harley courting Judith at such venues as his private jet, breaking her down and eventually seducing her.
From true romance, Perry shifts gears in the third act, attempting to turn his soap opera into a sordid thriller, a la Brian de Palma. Suddenly Harley has morphed into a drug-addicted monster and sucks Judith into the sleazy club world (not very good for his image as social media magnate but more believable as a superstar pro football player). Harley the monster throws Judith's mother to the ground while she's conducting a prayer service with her friends and then ends up beating Judith up, who Brice saves after his co-worker at the pharmacy reveals that Harley did the same thing to her and gave her HIV.
The worst part of Temptation is of course Mr. Perry's proclivity toward old-fashioned moralizing. An affair in Mr. Perry's mind can only result in the worst type of consequences. The woman ends up with the 'devil' himself (the repulsive Harley) and is then scarred for the rest of her life. As Judith hobbles down the street at film's end, the scene reminds me of the nightmare sequence from 'It's a Wonderful Life', where Mary Bailey ends up a spinster, working at the public library. Here too, Judith will remain a spinster, joining her boring mother, at church services. Perry takes the side of moralizing Christians, promoting the dictum: 'if you cheat, you pay'.
Like most melodramas of this ilk, Tyler Perry doesn't know how to create characters that resemble real people. They are only cheap cardboard cutouts, placed inside a narrative that's been done to death, for years. The fact that this film was financially successful, only goes to show that the tastes of the majority of film goers out there today, are on a very low, aesthetic level.