Not Easily Broken

There are small moments of truth hidden in Not Easily Broken, surrounded by moments of grand, over the top melodrama. To be fair, the movie is an improvement over Fireproof, a recent film that also took a Christian angle on trying to hold a marriage together. It's thanks to these small moments of truth, and some decent performances, that the movie is watchable. Sure, you'll forget about it as soon as the credits start to roll, but it's watchable.

The couple at the center of the story are Dave Johnson (Morris Chestnut) and Clarice Clark (Taraji P. Henson, who was wonderful in the recent The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but is only okay here). They've been married for about 13 years, and despite some major set backs, they seem to be a living a comfortable, if not distant, life together. Dave had to give up his dreams of being a professional baseball player when an injury cut his career short, but he has a small business that he owns and coaches a Little League team on the side. Because of his injury, it's been up to Clarice to be the main earner in the relationship, and she's found success selling real estate. Most of the tension between them stems from the fact that Dave feels like he's unwanted, since his wife handles everything. That, and the fact that he wants a baby, but his wife is too career-oriented to slow down. Something tells me if this movie was set in today's housing market, Clarice would have a lot more time on her hands.

There's a car accident, which cripples Clarice and forces her to go into physical rehabilitation. Enter Julie (Maeve Quinlan), the blonde physical therapist who makes personal house calls to help Clarice, and catches Dave's eye. Julie seems to have it all. She's sweet, she's beautiful, and she's got a cute-as-a-button kid (Cannon Jay) who's on the local swim team and occasionally plays on Dave's Little League team. It doesn't help matters that Clarice becomes increasingly irritable toward her husband because of her current physical state, and that her shrewish mother (Jenifer Lewis) moves in and basically takes over the house, making Dave feel like he has even less worth in the home. Both Clarice and her mother are constantly on Dave's case, and want him to stop wasting his time coaching Little League. The way these women talk, you'd think coaching youth baseball was the same as being a child molester. Dave tries to take comfort in his two supportive best friends (Eddie Cibrian and Kevin Hart), but they're here more for comic relief than offering help. Fortunately, a local Bishop (Albert Hall) may hold the advice that both Dave and Clarice need to hold their marriage together.

Not Easily Broken is about as hard to figure out as a jigsaw puzzle that's already completed when you open the box. The title stems from a speech the Bishop gives the couple on their wedding day, about the ties that bind them, and the separate ties that bind them to God. I initially feared the worse, thinking this message was going to be pounded into my skull by the end of the movie, but fortunately, the screenplay by Brian Bird (adapting from a novel by Pastor T.D. Jakes) doesn't get too preachy with the sermons and the message. It's a simple and predictable story where we feel like we're constantly one step ahead of the characters. When Julie's son is told by his swim coach to be careful and stop early so he doesn't hit the wall when he's swimming, we just know the kid's gonna crack his head against the side of the pool eventually. The movie doesn't let us down. What holds our interest are the moments in the film when it goes off its auto pilot plot, and just lets the characters talk to one another. There are some quiet scenes between Dave and Clarice that hold a lot of truth in the dialogue, and they act like a real married couple going through a crisis.

Unfortunately, the movie keeps on jerking us back to reality, usually by the next scene. Clarice's best friend at work is a stereotypical black woman (Niecy Nash), who likes to start every sentence with "Girl...", and gets to say lines like "Don't make me go all Oprah on you" or "Don't go all Waiting to Exhale on me". Clarice's mother also seems to have been written straight out of the "Mother-in-Law from Hell" guidebook, and exists simply to irritate Dave and the audience. At least we feel his pain. One character that I did think was handled well was the "other woman" character, Julie. She's not a villain, is quite sensible, and we can understand why Dave would be drawn to her, especially in his circumstances. She never pressures him, so it comes across like his feelings are entirely his own, and not manipulated by the plot. The final scene that Dave and her share together is mature, and seems to build from a mutual understanding between both of them. As good as these moments are, it made the more generic moments a bit harder to take.

Not Easily Broken is not a bad movie, but it's also a movie you shouldn't trouble yourself to see. You've heard it all before, you've probably seen it all before, and we'll probably see it again in a few months. Morris Chestnut is an effective lead, there are a couple good scenes, and the comic relief characters even made me smile a couple times. But that's not enough to recommend the film. It knows it's audience, and is simply preaching to the choir. If you're a member of that choir and you haven't had you fill of these movies, go and enjoy.

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