Our Daily Trailer: I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF

Welcome to Our Daily Trailer’s Plead Your Case week. Each day one of us will make an argument for a film we love regardless of its actual quality. Of course, I’m starting with a Tyler Perry movie.

There are a more entertaining Tyler Perry films than I Can Do Bad All by Myself. You have your crazier movies, like Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Why Did I Get Married Too? You have your funnier movies, like Madea’s Big Happy Family and A Madea Christmas. You even have a couple movies that are genuinely better, like Daddy’s Little Girls and The Family that Preys. But I still hold that I Can Do Bad All by Myself represents Tyler Perry’s best Tyler Perry movie.

This is, I believe, the closest Tyler Perry has come to representing the entirety of his brand in a successful fashion. Daddy’s Little Girls and The Family that Preys, for instance, offer real high points in his filmography, but both lack Madea, a character he seems borderline ashamed of. I Can Do Bad All by Myself not only features Madea but manages to use her as an actual character with a narrative function. She’s as close to a human in this film as she’s ever going to get.

Meanwhile, it’s the only Tyler Perry film to bring the musical aspect of his stage show into his filmography. For Colored Girls’ poetry interludes touch upon musical filmmaking, but I Can Do Bad All by Myself has actual songs and performances. A bunch of them. And one of them is good!

It also offers one of Tyler Perry’s few actually strong female characters. While Alfre Woodard’s Alice from The Family that Preys has always felt like his most successful female character, one that actually embodies the feminine strength Perry’s films aver but rarely portray, she also feels too saintly to truly believe. Taraji P. Henson’s April gets there by being kind of a badass. She goes toe to toe with Madea without breaking a sweat, for instance. The film’s plot ends up taking this away from her in favor of domesticity, but even then she’s still the primary active agent of her own life, something few Tyler Perry ladies can boast.

And finally, I Can Do Bad All by Myself represents the one time Tyler Perry aptly executed his addiction to characters who were raped as children. That sounds crass, but it’s something he included in all of his movies for a while, and this is the only entry where it makes sense on a narrative and character level and doesn’t feel exploitive. Well, it still feels exploitive but not nearly as much as usual. April’s childhood trauma guides her character throughout the film in relatively organic and genuine ways. It’s not some big, shocking surprise Perry throws in out of nowhere. It also creates bonds between her and other characters that have meaning and impact. Like Madea’s inclusion, it’s a Perry trope that finally works in favor of a film rather than creating tonal chaos.

That’s really the whole point. This is a Tyler Perry film through and through, not some experimental entry that forgoes most of what he’s known for. It’s all here. But this is the one where he actually nails it.

This trailer doesn’t really do my argument any favors. The cutting and narration basically make it look exactly like the film most people assume it is. And to an extent that’s not inaccurate. There are many, many things keeping this from being a for real mainstream movie. On top of that, the film’s biggest qualities only become apparent in contrast to the rest of Tyler Perry’s filmography, so enjoying it requires a lot of homework. But if you’re already into the whole Tyler Perry thing, I Can Do Bad All by Myself offers a secret gem among a crowd of much louder films.

(Also, buy my book! It's full of this nonsense!)