Lacey's mom is the biggest racist in the film (and that's saying a lot seeing as there is one scene where Madea stumbles into an actual Ku Klux Klan meeting), and refuses to treat the white people in her midst with even the barest bones of politeness. Conner's mom and pop are hillbillies out of the " Deliverance" playbook, bearing possum pie and moonshine, and a ribald sex life which they are not afraid to discuss in public, mortifying everyone (except Madea, who is delighted). Madea stalks around, sizing up the entire situation, and barking inappropriate comments in mixed company about farts and sexual encounters.
Mom, as I mentioned, is a sociopath and is rude to the white folks, wondering what the hell they are doing hanging around her daughter's house. Lacey, trapped in her web of lies, ropes in her new in-laws to keep up the facade that Conner is just a hired man until she can figure out a way to break the bad news to Mom. Unfortunately, Conner's parents are also visiting for Christmas (they are played, entertainingly, by Larry the Cable Guy and Kathy Najimy, upping the weird factor considerably), and the two cars holding the in-laws-unknown-to-one-another arrive at Lacey and Conner's house within minutes of one another. Her mother, as Lacey tells Conner, has a bad heart and all these dreams for her daughter and marrying a white man is not part of the plan and her mother very well may have a heart attack upon hearing the news. Lacey has secretly eloped with a white man named Conner ( Eric Lively), and he is the main reason Lacey does not want to come home for Christmas. He, in the hopes that he can spark up his old romance with Lacey, decides to drive down to Alabama with the contract in person, and so Eileen and Madea hitch a ride.īut there are more plot twists. Lucky for Eileen, Lacey ( Tika Sumpter) is deeply embroiled in her own plot-heavy situation, involving a thwarted Christmas Jubilee (no funds!), and an encounter with a yearning ex-boyfriend ( JR Lemon) who just happens to work for a big corporation which is looking to sponsor just such an event, and they are ready to hand over an appalling $100,000 to the school. Eileen wants to go surprise her for Christmas, but there is the small problem that Eileen does not drive. Eileen is upset that her daughter Lacey, who has moved to a small town in Alabama to teach at an elementary school, is not coming home for Christmas. Meanwhile, exposition is thrown at us in messy splotches. Madea is fired, and she storms out of the store huffing and puffing. Things do not go well, when Madea straight-talks a poor plump woman who wants to buy some lingerie and also takes personal phone calls while standing at her station. First, there's the opening scene with Madea dressed up in a Santa suit, being roped into working at an upscale department store by her niece Eileen ( Anna Maria Horsford), who appears to be a straight-up sociopath. The story told here is both simple and mind-bendingly complex. So it's a mixed and annoying bag, and "A Madea Christmas" is no different. It's heavy with unvarnished propaganda, and trucks in broad stereotypes and manipulative pulling of the heart strings. But the surrounding schtick of the movies? There we run into problems. I happen to find the schtick rather funny, especially when her eyes go dead and flat at the same time that she laughingly bull dozes her way into the heart of a situation. Malaprop of Perry's alternate universe, spouting homespun grammatically incorrect wisdom, and if you can't stand being in her presence then the Madea movies will be a nightmare. Madea is a road-of-least-resistance truth-talking loud-mouthed granny enveloped in gigantic muumuus and surrounded by dimwit members of her own family who either cower in fear of her, or underestimate her ability to cut through their malarkey. It features the adventures and mishaps of one "Aunt Madea", played by Perry himself in drag. Tyler Perry's "Madea" franchise, based on his popular one-man shows, is an unstoppable juggernaut with a built-in audience.
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