Not Easily Broken

Based on well-known American pastor and bestselling author T.D. Jakes's sudsy novel about a marriage on the rocks, what's surprising about Not Easily Broken is not the strong Christian element but rather the highly unflattering portrait that the film paints of black women. Husband Dave Johnson (Morris Chestnut) is practically a saint, but his wife Clarice (Taraji P. Henson) is a materialistic real-estate-selling shrew, encouraged in her self-absorption and anger by her sharp-tongued mother Mary (Jenifer Lewis), who is bitter about her own unhappy matrimonial experience. The only entirely likable female is the white single mom (Maeve Quinlan) with whom Clarice mistakenly believes her husband is having an affair (actually, he's taking a paternal interest in the woman's fatherless son, having been denied a child of his own by his career-driven spouse). Not Easily Broken is a soap opera rife with overripe flourishes—domestic shouting matches, catty repartee, car crashes, horrible accidents, hospital deathwatches, and teary funerals (along with occasional ponderous pieties from an avuncular minister advising the central couple that all will be well if they have a child). Although it's a slow, overheated marital melodrama on the surface, Not Easily Broken ultimately comes across as misogynistic—even in religious terms (apparently, childless marriages and working women are not part of God's plan). Not recommended. (F. Swietek)