Aug 14, 2022
by Fortunate Ndlovu
Madea is back on our screens in A Madea Homecoming. This is Tyler Perry’s 12th film, and Madea is not going to let any drama disrupt her great-grandson’s college graduation celebration.
Content Warning: Spoilers ahead!
As Madea says, HELLUR! Tyler Perry is back with another Madea movie. As a fan of all Madea (Mabel Simmons) movies, I give Tyler Perry hats off for understanding the assignment and giving us another humorous and educational movie about Madea and her family. This new movie is about Madea’s great-grandson, Tim (portrayed by Brandon Black), coming home to celebrate his graduation. Tim’s parents are divorced, and they barely get along. Tim decides to tag along with Davi (portrayed by Isha Blakker), his biracial friend and dorm roommate. Davi hates Tim’s father with a passion, which at first, I thought was quite strange. Amid the celebration, secrets are revealed and some of those secrets break friendships while others mend relationships (mainly in the family).
As friends and family members start arriving, we get introduced to some familiar characters such as Uncle Joe (Madea’s younger brother) who is blunt, observative and untamable. When he sees Tim and Davi sitting on the couch together and gets told that they are dorm roommates, he concludes that they are romantically involved. Another familiar face is Cassi Davis-Patton who reprises her role as Aunt Bam, Madea’s first cousin and partner in crime. She is still the same Aunt Bam who loves young men and smoking weed. Her funniest scene in the movie would be when her phone was ringing and her ringtone was Cardi B’s WAP - that says a lot about an old woman with that kind of ringtone. We also get introduced to Mr Brown (David Anthony Mann Sr.) who is the father of Madea’s daughter Cora (Tamela Mann). He comically sets himself ablaze moments after he was warned to stop adding numerous bottles of lighter fluid and gasoline to the barbeque grill. This scene was hilarious.
One of the new characters that we get introduced to is Agnes Brown, who happens to be Davi's Irish great-aunt. She is portrayed by Brendan O’Carroll, the star of the BBC sitcom Mrs Brown’s Boys. Agnes and Madea have something in common in that they are both portrayed by men in drag. The first encounter between the two characters starts on a wrong note. As the story progresses, however, they become close to a point where Madea gives her a portion of her private stash of candies - chocolates with a marijuana centre. Agnes becomes so delusional that one cannot help but laugh. Their bond grows so strong, and Madea ends up sharing her marijuana centred chocolate candies recipe with her. They also have a heart-to-heart conversation about letting their children make their own life decisions and not try to enforce the lives they want them to live.
The day before Tim’s graduation, he asks everyone to gather outside because he has an announcement to make. He tells his family that he is gay and to his surprise, none of them caused a raucous about it - not even Madea as an elder. Instead, she says the family knew that since his childhood, and they were just waiting for him to say something. His family simply said that it does not change how much they love him, which is a very exciting plot twist to how typical coming out stories turn out amongst black families. This scene proves that Tyler Perry does not only aim to entertain us but also to create awareness and educate us about the issues that black families tend to be ignorant and in denial about.
There are moments of awe in the movie where we see secrets from the most unexpected characters being unravelled. One example is the secret that Tim’s mother Laura (portrayed by Gabrielle Dennis) happens to be in a relationship with Davi. This plot twist gives the movie its essence of entertainment without forgetting the hilarious scenes that make one laugh their lungs out in addition to the drama portrayed in the dramatic scenes.
Just as the saying goes, “a day with no laughter is a day wasted”. I recommend this movie to anyone who wants to take a break from their monotonous life for an hour and 47 minutes and just experience some good laughter.
Oh yes! Brace yourselves for drama, humour and learning some life lessons in Tyler Perry’s new release because it is about to go down. It is all about laughter when Madea is around.