When Diary’s critics do become engaged, the tone borders on malevolence, most of which is directed against the grandmother Madea character. Perry acts the part himself—in drag—with such reckless abandon he makes Robin Williams’ Mrs. Doubtfire appear a model of subtlety and restraint. During the course of the film, Madea brandishes a pistol, vandalizes a mansion with a chainsaw, and smokes copious amounts of marijuana.
Diary’s detractors correctly acknowledge that Madea is a crass and unbelievable caricature. What they miss is that her complete lack of verisimilitude is deliberate and critical to the aesthetic that Perry endeavors to create.
Without Madea’s brazen comic relief, the film’s darker themes and overt religiosity would be intolerable. Perry strives not for emotional consistency but for a harmonious blend of disparate emotions. Diary’s tone is a compromise between the tragic and the ridiculous.
The film’s other performances are tender and believable. In particular, Kimberly Elise and Shemar Moore, portraying the “mad black woman” and her blue-collar suitor respectively, really shine. Their nuanced portrayals sell the romance, and Perry’s script wisely sidesteps the manufactured histrionics that mar so many cinematic romances.
It also bears mentioning that Diary doesn’t belabor its viewers with a gratuitous sex scene; you know Elise’s and Moore’s characters love each other because they act like people in love, not because you see them writhing in soft-focus. If nothing else, Perry should receive a special achievement award for making chastity seem sexy again.
All in all, there is a great deal to recommend Diary. It falls far short of greatness, but it beats mediocrity by a considerable margin. I suspect, however, that you can only take away from Diary as much as you bring to it.
Perry’s film is very aware of its location at the margins of popular culture, and its form and content reflect its “outsideness.” Perhaps future critics will venture beyond themselves and engage the film in its indigenous context.