blaxblew

I REALLY wanted to like this a lot but this is a really WEIRD "faith based" movie. Maybe something was lost in the editing of transitioning from the big screen to Lifetimetv?

This started out so good before the husband's death with a really good foundation of the couple and their life together. But, everything after his death was very confusing, heavily reliant on embarrassing tropes.

Unfortunately it's the writing not her "grief." And that's a real shame given the excellent Black cast. I was surprised to see the excellent actors who unfortunately were saddled with this bad script and screenplay.

Faith desperately needed substance abuse treatment AND grief therapy. Doesn't seem like she's got either to the extent her alcoholism, substance abuse, child neglect and other behaviors indicated. No amount of "church" or swelling gospel music in the world is going to "heal" the very deep issues she displayed. God and most modern Black churches embrace therapy AND our need to work with behavioral health PROFESSIONALS. Instead, Faith just kept lying to herself and everybody around her.

A lot of it just didn't make sense. There was absolutely no need for the HS friend. I wasn't sure if she and the singer/HS girlfriend were going to end up in bed together themselves. Since the goal was to make this a happy ever after story by hooking her up with a man by the end, it would have been better for the high school friend to have been a male who turned out to be a positive influence in her and her son's life. Personally, I would have preferred seeing Faith become a woman who stood on her own in a healthy way in spite of tribulation. It was just all over the place.

God is NOT a genie. This movie uses God as a wish granter and that's just not the way faith works! Even people of faith go through things. Just like God gives us doctors, he gives us licensed therapists and other support.

Most modern pastors know that they do NOT fill that role on their own unless they have a behavioral health degree (which some do!) There's no indication that this particular pastor had that type of formal training. The movie just seemed to simplify her behavioral health issues as something that could be prayed away and hugged away. But, that's not the way life works with prayer.

It would have been nice for this to have been a bit more grounded with some level of realism. Perhaps the next time they want to make a movie like this, they might want to consult with modern Black churches not trite, stereotypical nonsense.

I wasn't sure what to really expect with this film but it was actually decent. Not great, but definitely watchable. In short, I think it probably came across as a fantastic book but this is one of those books that doesn't translate well to film. You get a lot of proclamations and soliloquies about motherhood which again, work well in print but not so much to carry a film. It goes on and on about the sacrifices of motherhood, which we all understand, without appreciating that motherhood is a choice. Every choice has a balance. Still, it is really funny at times, especially when the mother is interacting with her son. Worth watching!

Coleman Domingo is becoming my favorite actor. He really can make reading the phone book a compelling story. And that's just about as compelling as The Madness right now. The dialogue is almost embarrassingly bad. They try very hard to be punchy and snappy but it comes across as very predictable and corny.

From the beginning, there's much about the story that just defies the most basic commonsense. I constantly find myself asking 'why why why?!' So much so that after episode 2, I skipped episode 7 just to see what happens at the end. I have little doubt that there's little more than lots of overwrought storytelling and superfluous dialogue in the episodes I skipped.