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Hi everyone, you must've watched or at least heard of the Movie Acrimony from the stables of the famous Tyler Perry. The movie has gathered some fame so far, since its premier on 30th March, 2018. It has grossed $46 million worldwide according to Wikipedia. And although it's ratings are not so high (5.5/10 · IMDb
20% · Rotten Tomatoes
32% · Metacritic) It is famous because it features the remarkable and indomitable Taraji P. Henson

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Who plays Melinda and who is also widely acclaimed and one of the lead characters in the much celebrated Empire Series

And it is famous because it is from the arsenal of the excellent Tyler Perry who has been doing it big in the industry for so long now.

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Then again it is famous because it has a very interesting storyline and it is very engaging, it is a movie that leaves you with a lot to talk about and sparks a lot of conversations. In many hostels, circles, cliques, social media platforms, gathering of friends, etc. People have debated this movie, discussed it, analysed it, and all. Many people immediately start sharing opinions and views once they meet a person and find out they too have watched the movie.

This is because it shows two people who were twisted and turned by the complicated whims of fate and did some wrongs and some rights and and got some results in the end. So you and many others who have watched the film can't help but want to say what you think about the results they got, if you think they deserved it or not, who did wrong or right or what. And if you've watched it I bet you've shared your views and debated it with someone or a truckload of people!

But for those who haven't watched it though, the movie Acrimony is an American psychological thriller, a girl called Melinda meets a guy in college called Robert, falls in love with him. The girl's mother dies she has sex with him on the day of the funeral. They begin a relationship and she catches him cheating just after she'd bought him a car and in rage she rams the his home (a recreational vehicle) with her car and she's hospitalized. The guy vows never to cheat again and they get married. The guy couldn't get a job after graduation due to some reasons so he puts all his energy into a battery he's inventing and his invention is being sponsored with all the money that was left for the girl by her late mother in a will. After 20 years the guy wasn't able to market his invention to a big company, he and the girl were deep in debt, financial problems, plus the girl now suspected him of cheating on her with the same girl he was caught with 20 years ago. Everything went sour!

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They divorce, and the guy is left on the street with odd jobs, the girl he cheated on his wife with 20 years ago takes him in and helps him market his dream to the big company and he blows up like the Twin Towers. He becomes so rich, he goes back to his ex wife Melinda and gives her $10 million and the keys to her house lost on a mortgage. Then he gets married to the girl who helped him secure the deal but his ex wife comes back to claim him, she resorts to violence over time and in the end it was tragic as ex wife dies while trying to kill ex husband and his new woman.

Review Proper:

The major thing about this movie was that it was narrated by Melinda and we see the story through her eyes and thus, her point of view. And she was in a very bitter state while she narrated the story. She was in acrimony. As she told the story she made the man look like the enemy from the start of the movie and every move he made was made to seem like a ploy to hurt her in the end. So due to this fact that we see the movie through her embittered eyes, narrated through her embittered mouth, we are convinced by her into seeing the man as the enemy from the start and seeing no good in the moves he made from the start. We keep seeing him for a bad person in most of the story because our narrator keeps saying he's bad.

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So what this criticism would try to do is look at the whole story from an unbiased position and point out the areas where the narrator wrongly viewed a situation or a move made by the man to be against herself. This is simply defending us from the bias that viewing this story from the Melinda's pained perspective must have done to us.

Furthermore, Tyler Perry, in an interview on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah said that he usually serve as an advisor to his friends and when someone tells him about some personal/marital problem they tend to make themselves the saint and tell it from their perspective so he decided to make this movie that sees from a person's perspective leave all the facts for all to see and then leave it to the public to judge who was right or wrong. But long before I watched this interview, I already knew that we had to be very objective in our reasoning and understand that the narrator was bitter and may have viewed and portrayed everything in a bad light.

First of all

The Sex On The Day Her Mum Was Buried

If you watched the movie, you can hear her say he took advantage of her because she was grieving, took her home, made her feel even more moody by putting on Nina Simone's sad songs and then took her virginity. And if you watched the movie you would even be convinced and be like "Man, that is some bad bro, how could he have taken advantage of a grieving girl like that?"

But the fact is, he didn't take advantage of her at all! If you take a look at it again without her bitter narration in the background.

First he didn't try to take her home. It wasn't even his intention. You can remember, after the funeral he was walking home without even telling her he's leaving. Then she ran out to him and asks where he's going, and that was only when he told her he was going back home. She noticed that he was going to walk all the way and offered to give him a ride home, he refused and kept refusing but she insisted, so he let her give him the ride home. Clearly didn't try to take her home.

When they got to the front of his home, while still in her car, he didn't invite her in. She was the one who asked him if she could come in, and he said "yeah". She came in and looking around she saw Nina Simone's album cover art and asked him who Nina Simone was. Dude was surprised that she didn't know Nina Simone, so he told her and was about to play something for her just so she could listen to something from Nina Simone for the first time. She refused but he insisted and played a song. Immediately he saw that the song seemed to make her sad, he apologized and was about to take the music off, but she said no, that he could let it play. So he let it play.

And then she asked about his parents. After telling her, he says he's sorry about her mother's death, he gives her a consoling hug and he tells her she's beautiful and they kiss and next, guess who was leading who to the bedroom? She! She led him to his own bed and they had sex.

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Looking at this you can tell very clearly that Robert never planned on taking her virginity or taking advantage of her grief in any way as she made us believe. All Robert was doing was being nice and doing what she wanted and just being a good host. He never planned to take her home, never planned to sadden her even more with songs, he never planned to have sex with her but after they kissed it led to something else just as kissing usually does. He even probably never wanted to have sex with her in the first place but after they kissed and she clearly wanted to have sex he couldn't turn it down on a day like that, not after the tragedy that befell her.

Understanding this single event would let you see the entire movie for what it really is. You saw how she made the audience frown about Robert "taking advantage of her grief and taking her virginity" when that clearly was not the case as we have seen from the above revisitation. This same way she made this event look like a ploy to victimize her was the same way she made almost everything if not everything Robert did to be a ploy to victimize her. And almost everytime if not everytime she was wrong but we were convinced by her because we saw through her eyes. She was doing the thinking for us. And the fact that he cheated made matters worse, our hatred/view of him in a bad light solidified completely. But it would prove that cheating on him was the only wicked act he committed against her. Let's move on.

When She Bought Him A Car

Robert was working on a battery he invented and he kept sending samples of his ideas to a big company in search of sponsorship. He was scared that the company might call him for a meeting and he would not be able to make it on time because he doesn't have a car, Melinda might not be around to drive him quickly enough, etc. While he told these fears to Melinda he was holding in his hand an advertisement for cars. After he laid the complaint Melinda decided to buy a car for him. He never asked her for the car, she thought it necessary because she heard him talk about his fears of not making it in time for the hopeful meeting. She was in love with him and she was in support of the dream, she saw he needed the car, she had them money. Sounds like a long line of additions that equals her buying the car. So she bought the car.

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From the movie you'll be convinced he was manipulating her, because she said so and because you were seeing it from her bitter perspective. But take a minute to consider that it must have just been a guy who had fears, relayed it to his lover who happened to have the solution and so she solved it.

When Robert Couldn't Get A Job And Remained Broke For So Long, Living On Her Cash, Sponsoring His Research With Her Cash And The Ultimate Finishing Up Of Her Cash.

He couldn't get a job because of a past record but he was consumed by his dream and his invention. And he worked his all on it. Melinda made it look like he was lazy, reliant and not caring while she narrated.

But can Robert be said to be lazy after all the work and determination we saw him put into the battery he invented? Also remember Melinda said he also got odd jobs from time to time but the money he made from these jobs couldn't do much, so we can see he actually got odd jobs. Was it his fault (or the fault of his laziness) that he couldn't get better jobs? He had a jail time record that prevented his being employed in better jobs. He was clearly a good workman, remember Melinda's sister's husband praising him for the good work he had been doing so far as the truck driver.

Robert was clearly a man who was going through a lot. Couldn't get a good job due to records, so he got little jobs and he put his entire being into his invention that he so believed would make him very rich, just that he couldn't market his dream at the time. All he needed was support and understanding not ridicule or hatred, and he got this support and understanding from his wife Melinda. She loved him and provided for him and his dream, she gave a lot of her money for it and even mortgaged her house for this dream. You can even see her in one of his videos which he sent to the company about his idea, she was happy, supportive, excited and all in the video. The only time she seemed to go against against his battery was when the security asked never to see Robert around the company and never to receive any more applications from him. She told him it was alright, that he can put the battery away and find a job. Which was still a sweet and supportive thing to say.

But he didn't only need this support and understanding from his wife and those around him, he also needed it from we the audience that watched the movie, not our monetary support but just our acknowledgement that he's working hard and not being a dummy. But we were not so inclined to give him our support because we saw the story from Melinda's eyes, whilst Melinda was embittered and her bitter words were always there in the background. She had loved and supported him all those years but when she was narrating the movie she was embittered and so made it look like Robert was lazy and reliant.

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If she was in a good mood and narrated the story in a good mood we would have fallen in love with Robert while she talked about this hard time, she would have said: "Robert couldn't get a job, but he had a dream! He believed in this dream and he worked tirelessly on this dream while still getting odd jobs at times. He expected to make a lot of cash that would transform our lives when he markets the said dream, just that it took a long time for him to market it at last."

But alas, we saw all she said due to the fact that she was far from a good mood while she talked.

You might say Robert didn't try to give Melinda a happy life even while they struggled but you might also take that back when you remember he got little jobs from time to time, gave her good sex and cuddling (as she admitted), and it was hard for them to be happier because they were waiting for their life to begin with the sale of the battery idea. They were two people who were struggling with brokeness, disappointment and finding things difficult. Unhappiness cannot be so far away.

When Robert Got Rich And Stuck To The Other woman

Although Robert gave her a great cheque and the keys, she was in deep regrets for not sticking to Robert and she wanted him back.

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Alright, here I don't think the fact that we watched the story from Melinda's eyes really prejudiced us because a lot of people still think Robert was not really wrong to not go back to her. So for this heading I'm just going to say my opinion about what Robert did at last and why I hold such opinion. This is the part where everyone who has watched the movie like to comment on the most so here I go.

I think Robert was wrong for not going back to Melinda. When he got the money, what Melinda deserved was the best that he could give her and the best that he could give her wasn't just money (even though it was up to $10 million) and her lost house, the best he could give her was money, her lost house and himself, a new rich husband that would treat her like a queen, buy her everything, take her to the moon.She deserved this much for all she went through with him, all she suffered and all she gave.

But that doesn't justify her rage though, because she was given a lot already.

The woman who helped Robert secure the deal (Diana) deserved a lot too and I think the $10 million would have been enough for her trouble. He should have given to Diana what he gave to Melinda and give to Melinda what he gave to Diana.

So this is where I'll leave it, thanks for dropping by! My regards to your favorite pet.