Jumping the Broom

My big, fat ethnically stereotyped wedding!

The H-Bomb: Young, professional African Americans Sabrina (Paula Patton) and Jason (Laz Alonso) have been dating for a whopping six months and are madly in love. They’re soooo much in love that, when Sabrina breaks the news that she’s being promoted and transferred to China, Jason pops the question. A month later, they’re about to be married at Sabrina’s family home in Martha’s Vineyard. Suffice to say Sabrina’s parents, the Watsons (Angela Bassett, Brian Stokes Mitchell), are fairly well-to-do. Jason, on the other hand, comes from an urban, working class family. His mother, Mrs. Taylor (Loretta Devine), is a post office worker with a hot head and a big mouth who doesn’t appreciate not being introduced to Sabrina before the wedding.

So, Mrs. Taylor descends on the Watson’s home with her best friend, Shonda (Tasha Smith), Jason’s uncle Willie (Mike Epps), and his cousin Malcolm (DeRay David) in tow. As anyone could predict, the two families mix together about as well as oil and water. Mrs. Taylor makes little attempt to hide her contempt for Sabrina and her family, who she considers to be a bunch of snobs, and Mrs. Watson returns the favor, looking at the Taylors as rubes. What follows is roughly two hours of broad stereotypes, cliché characters, hit-or-miss humor, and ho-hum drama.

The most remarkable thing about “Jumping the Broom” is how completely unremarkable it is. There’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before, and it leaves next to no impression once it’s over. There are no real big laughs, just some scattered chuckles and a few amused smiles.

Like I said, the racial stereotypes run amok. The Taylors love their greens, and their sweet potato pie, and their chicken (wince). The Ebonics flows freely from their lips. Jason’s uncle and cousin both look at this wedding as a big opportunity to hit on women. There’s the requisite “Barack and Michelle” joke, and, what proves to be a major bone of contention between the two families, Mrs. Taylor wants Sabrina to “jump the broom,” a tradition for black weddings, while Sabrina does not.

Much of the conflict in the film stems from the fact that these two families belong to two different economic classes, with Mrs. Taylor resenting a family that she believes turned its back on its heritage, and resenting her son for wanting to be a part of that family. This is the one aspect of the film that is fairly interesting, but mainly serves as an excuse to show stereotypical black blacks colliding with “white-washed” rich blacks and make endless jokes about it. It’s not remotely offensive, but it’s pretty obvious.

Another problem that I had with the film was that I just didn’t buy into most of it. I didn’t buy that Sabrina and Jason are so insanely enamored with each other, despite the movie trying so hard to convince me that they are. I didn’t buy that Mrs. Taylor would be as blatantly rude and hostile to this family as she is. She is a guest in their home, after all, you think she would have the decency to at least try to mask her disdain for them. And I especially didn’t buy into the happy ending that the movie tries to shove down our throats.

The movie also goes the “Valentine’s Day” route by making it ensemble oriented, instead of keeping the main focus on the couple and their dueling mamas. As a result, we get several side characters and subplots that are entirely extraneous. These include a white wedding planner (Julie Bowen), who’s a complete fish out of water, a bridesmaid who is having an affair with the wedding chef, and the bride’s college age cousin who develops a crush on Shonda, who’s twice his age. None of this crap was needed and only tacked extra minutes onto the film’s running time.

Then there are the dramatic elements, which are laid on pretty thick in the second half. We find out, that despite the picture perfect facade, Sabrina’s family is anything but, and a major, life changing twist is revealed. Thing is, I don’t believe in these characters, as stated, and I really don’t care enough about them to give two Goddamns about their problems. And like with “Valentine’s Day”, anytime there’s a serious scene, they bring on the sad, “Full House” piano music… ugghh!

A major asset the film has is its cast. All the actors, down to the most minor supporting players, are fine. Patton and Alonso are individually quite good as the would be bride and groom, but together they lacked chemistry. I just didn’t feel them as a couple. Bassett displays her usual chops as the mother of the bride, who despite a snooty exterior, comes off as being a perfectly decent person. Epps brings his share of funny moments as Jason’s swinger uncle, but when we’re told toward the end that the two have a father/son like bond, it comes out of the blue because the movie never gave us that impression earlier.

The best performance, and the best reason to see “Jumping the Broom“, is Loretta Devine. She completely walks away with the movie, leaving everyone else in the dust. At first she seems like yet another stereotype in the mix, but the screenwriters actually decided to make her a little deeper than the typical, assertive black mama. At first we think she resents Sabrina and her family because of their money and lifestyle, but, it’s really about her son. It turns out she’s an incredibly overbearing mother and can’t stand to let her son go to any woman. It’s this that not only makes her funny, but sympathetic, even when she does something unbelievably cruel late in the second act. Again, if I were to recommend this, it would be because of Devine’s performance.

I know I’ve been hard on “Jumping the Broom”, but it’s not a bad film, it’s just an incredibly average one. It’s relatively painless to sit through, but despite a few performances to spice up the mix, it’s all pretty bland, and in a couple of years will be forgotten completely. I guess this is what the studio considers “counter programming” to “Thor”, but my advice is, if you’re going to shell out your hard earned dollars to see a movie this weekend, then go see “Thor”, and save “Jumping the Broom” for Netflix… that is, if you must see it at all.