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Nobody's Fool
Fools rush in to watch writer-director Tyler Perry's crass comedy about a high-flying advertising executive, who can market any product to gullible consumers and has personally bought into the idea of a perfect guy to sweep her off her feet. Painfully short on laughter and charm, Nobody's Fool claims to be selling us female empowerment and sisterly solidarity to a soundtrack of Janet Jackson and Boyz II Men. Girl power runs on empty from glossy opening scenes and our enthusiasm fails to recharge with the introduction of Girls Trip breakout star Tiffany Haddish as a potty-mouthed jailbird, who makes her inglorious entrance astride a male co-star inside a car filled with pot fumes. Perry's script turns up the volume on the profanities and steadily strips away the veneer of likeability from his emotionally wounded heroine, who was dumped by her beau shortly after she bought a wedding dress. On this evidence, he had a lucky escape. The career woman repeatedly mistreats and rejects a handsome barista, who woos her with roses and heartfelt compliments, then expects him to coming running into her gym-toned arms when she realises the error of her ways. Danica (Tika Sumpter) is one successful advertising campaign shy of promotion at a firm run by Lauren Meadows (Missi Pyle). If she can mastermind the launch of a women's fragrance with best friend Kalli (Amber Riley), Danica will make partner and secure the corner office of her dreams. Danica should have no trouble speaking to aspirational modern women: she is beautiful, successful and has a perfect boyfriend called Charlie ... at least that's what she tells friends. Charlie is an oil rig worker and claims to have poor WiFi coverage, which prevents him from video conferencing his sweetheart. Instead, the lovebirds communicate exclusively by text message and telephone. Danica's stoner mother Lola (Whoopi Goldberg) and ex-con sister Tanya (Haddish) are convinced that dreamboat Charlie is a "catfish" - a fake online profile created to ensnare a vulnerable singleton. Tanya advises Danica to date coffee shop manager Frank (Omari Hardwick) instead but his meagre salary and chequered past fail to tick any of her sister's boxes. Nobody's Fool stumbles awkwardly along a linear narrative littered with rom-com cliches and a protracted, softly lit sex scene that almost provides Perry's film with its sole giggle. Sumpter is short-changed - her spirited, independent 30-something is the least interesting or sympathetic character in crisis and she doesn't earn the happy ending that the film peddles with gusto. Haddish unleashes a tornado of expletives and sass where there should be heart and soul to no avail. I'm not buying Perry's hard sell of a teary-eyed fairytale.
