Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black

Movie Review

Pastor Clarence stands before the closed casket of Cody Bertran.

“There have been moments when I’m standing here that I have no conviction, because the person who died, died in Christ. And that person was a good soul, who God would welcome with open arms,” Clarence says.

But Cody was not such a person.

That’s why Clarence felt the Holy Spirit calling him to read, instead, Luke 16:27-28. It’s one of Jesus’ teachings, and it speaks of a rich man who finds himself in hell.

“He begged the prophet [Abraham], pleading that he would send word to his brothers so that they would try to do right so that they would not wind up where he was—in hell,” Clarence explains.

It’s Pastor Clarence’s earnest warning to the rest of the Bertran family, all of whom sit scowling in a nearby pew. They’ve got a reputation around town for their wicked deeds—according to Clarence, they’ve stolen, raped and maimed people. In fact, Cody died when a woman shot him as he attempted to rob her. In Clarence’s eyes, his grim ending should prompt the rest of the family to turn from their evil ways and get right with God.

But instead, their hearts only grow harder.

The family matriarch, Linda, shouts at the pastor and orders her four remaining sons to carry Cody’s body out of the church. They bury him in an unmarked grave on their own land.

It was a hard day for Pastor Clarence—but the week would get even more difficult for his daughter, Ava. She married one of the Bertran brothers, Dallas; the perceived slight at Cody’s funeral has only caused festering emotions within the man to boil. And while at a fancy dinner with friends, Dallas screams that he wants a divorce.

The demand hits Ava like a load of bricks. She’s endured plenty of pain and suffering at Dallas’ hands in the hope that her patience and love for him would nudge him toward becoming a kinder man. But as Ava’s friends and family help her to see the trauma that Dallas put her through, she eventually learns to move on with her life.

Meanwhile, Dallas’ heart continues to harden. And despite pursuing the divorce, he cannot stand to see Ava happy, especially as she begins talking with another man.

And if we apply the lesson of Luke 16 to the situation, not even Cody rising from the dead to warn Dallas of the consequences could convince him to repent of his evil.