Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns

NEW YORK (CNS) -- A courageous single mother pursues true love and encounters some offbeat rural relatives in the listless romantic comedy "Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns" (Lionsgate).

With three children and no job, because of the recent shutdown of the factory where she worked, inner-city Chicago mom Brenda Brown (Angela Bassett) is facing a crisis. She can no longer afford day care, the electric company has shut off her power, and her previously straight-arrow son Michael (Lance Gross) is being drawn into the drug trade.

Michael is a gifted basketball player for his high school. But when NBA recruiter Harry (Rick Fox) appears, offering him a professional contract, Brenda resists, fearful that Michael will squander his chances of going to college.

Out of the blue, Brenda receives a letter informing her of the death of her father, a man she never knew, and inviting her to his funeral in Georgia. There she and the kids are met by a number of newly discovered relations, including hard-drinking, tart-talking Vera (Jenifer Lewis) and Leroy (David Mann), a deacon given to frequent malapropisms and comically misguided choices of clothing.

It just so happens that this small community is also Harry's hometown, which is convenient, as it allows him to bond with Michael on the basketball court and sit next to Brenda at boisterous family dinners. As adept at love as he is at layups, the unusually generous Harry seems likely to win them both over.

Writer-director Perry's screen adaptation of his own play interweaves predictable dramatic developments with broad, sometimes off-color, humor. Though he scatters welcome references to God and faith throughout the dialogue, the behavior of some of his characters -- most prominently Brenda herself, whose three children, we learn, have three different fathers, none of whom had ever married her -- is at odds with Christian morality.

The film contains some sexual and scatological jokes, occasional crude and crass language, a brief scene of drug use and an abortion reference. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops