Temptation: Confessions of A Marriage Counselor [2013]

We realized we have never watched a Tyler Perry movie at bad movie night and because we really wanted to avoid his comedies for fear that they might be painful, we decided to go for a drama: Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor. There are times when a movie is divisive enough that we can’t really decide if it’s worth watching or not. That’s the function of the 4.5 spoon rating and this movie was definitely one of those. Kay and Sarah came down on the side that this one is worth it and Adam and Erik came down on the side that it’s not quite there. If you like campy and preachy cheating movies, you’ll probably like this one.  

The film has a really silly frame narrative of a marriage counselor telling the story of her “sister”, Judith, who got married to her childhood sweetheart, Brice. She wanted to be a marriage counselor but could only get a job at an upscale matchmaking company while her husband became a pharmacy tech at a mom and pop pharmacy with the mom from The Nanny and Brandy. In spite of this, they’re apparently broke? One day Judith meets a rich investor, Harley, who is almost comically forward with her even after finding out she’s married. Because we needed to give Brice a bad quality, he has forgotten her birthday for the last two years. It’s obvious that Harley is gunning for Judith and she keeps looking at him with this mixed aroused-disgusted face. Kim Kardashian then gives her a less virtuous makeover before she goes on a business trip with Harley. On his private plane he makes his move and she VERY clearly says no many times. Then he tells her to stop pretending and that she put up enough of a fight and things proceed. That’s not consent and is an obvious predictor of how Harley will continue to treat her! When she gets home, her super religious mom is there for a visit and realizes that she is under the devil’s influence. Judith starts just openly cheating for a while, and Brice even drags her out of the sin den that is Harley’s house but then things end between them. Judith and Harley fight a bunch and he hits her. Brice bonds with Brandy but she says something like, “We both know we’re not attracted to each other” and then later tells him she has HIV. Guess where she got it? Brice saves Judith again. We return to the outer frame where we realize Judith is living solo and kind of sad with HIV as her punishment while Brice has gotten remarried and has a kid as a reward.    

This movie has a good amount of unintentional comedy, mostly in the super unsexy sex talk, culminating in a tackle through glass, but the dissenters said that it wasn’t quite funny enough or that it had too much down time. Chose for yourself!   

Spoon Rating: 4.5