Director Tyler Perry’s first Netflix movie A Fall From Grace is everything I thought it would be, yet everything about it caught me off guard. It’s not hard to decipher a Tyler Perry movie from others with his chaotic and dramatic tones, sudden changes in mood, and uncredited cameos. This film was a bit different from his usual family-drama classics; the plot took a bit longer to reveal itself than in his other films, but the narrative was decent. The movie focuses on Grace Waters and her young lawyer, Jasmine Bryant. Waters was arrested for murder, and as Bryant spends more time with Waters, settling her case, she realizes there is so much more to uncover about the story Waters is telling her and what the Court believes. 

To describe the movie in a few words, I’d have to say that it was over the top. This is a movie you would want to watch with friends; the pure frustration and anger that comes with some scenes can be almost laughable with an audience. Once the movie hits its astounding, mind-boggling, and intense climax, you’ll either sit in shock or scream at the screen.  

The movie wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t particularly good either. The movie was shot in five days at Perry’s Atlanta-based studio, and in some scenes, it’s not hard to tell. The movie starts as if you’ve already reached the top of the hill and the only way to go is down, and it ends at an abrupt stop leaving you thinking, “That’s it?” If you pause the movie here and there and just look, you can see a lot of things that just seem to be out of place, awkwardly placed, or almost rushed. In one scene, I had to pause and laugh for a moment at what was supposed to be fireflies but was simply some sort of floating LED lights. But I must give credit where credit is due: for a film with so much intensity and as many plot twist as it has, to be shot in five days is impressive.  

Throughout the chaos and rush of the movie, we have to take time to appreciate the actors and actresses who star in it. The two main characters, Bryant (Bresha Webb) and Waters (Crystal Fox), were the only sense of stability in the movie, but they would be nothing without the supporting and equally important background actors: Bryant’s husband Jordan Bryant (Matthew Law), Waters’s best friend Sarah Miller (Phylicia Rashad), and the talented photographer Shannon DeLong (Mehcad Brooks). In her small but crucial role, the legendary actress Cicely Tyson makes an appearance as Alice, an elderely woman under the care of Miller. 

Though the movie as a whole was somewhat decent, the talent was phenomenal. There was emotion, there was truth, and there was power put into the roles of these characters, and that’s something you don’t always see. If you’re someone who can find humor in the oddest of places or simply enjoy multiple turns of events, then A Fall From Grace is most definitely the movie for you.