Jonathan Brackens

One suggestion: classify this movie as an irrelevant or satirical comedy, not simply a comedy. Those induced to subscribe to Peacock or purchased movie ticket were not appraised of a material element: consistent unbalanced satirical commentary. The previews and primary descriptions causes one to believe the movie is somewhere between a Tyler Perry movie and Friday. Not a movie that pulls not punches in an 1.75 hour diatribe. Minutely based upon the Bishop Eddie Long lawsuit, the movie is not without its vast creative license: recall the use of miming paint to highlight that the First Lady utilizes a facade, is made a fool of, is used as a puppet, is the vessel dictated by the pastor. Consider the imagery of the gum on the pastor's shoe at the beginning, but then the First Lady "gets real" how, now, her steps are blemished by the "sticky situation." There's so many subtleties in the picture that one may not readily identify or appreciate it. If the writers were more overt they would have likely not been able to produce the video because their editorialization would be so obvious. Even the ending—the last scene—was dripping with meaning, but only for those willing to extract and expatiate the hidden profundities. They've told the audience that the real story will be–not has been–told because the First Lady will find out her own strength and be honest with how she felt/ feels and copes. That her tearful honesty "washes away" the facade and that the woman is about to emerge. It's profundity creates irony because if one doesn't dive into the meaning of the camera WOMAN (emphasis here), you will miss that the anticlimactic ending is the pentacle of meaning here: the world, perhaps more specifically, the female world has peered into the superfluous religious, Judeo Christian patriarchal suppression and abuse of women. Remember the conversation before the camera woman shows up? The pastor speaks about bringing more of the old testament in his sermons and straddling its great divide. The old testament is sexist: women are inferior and the subjects of service to the man (e.g., Abraham with "permission" from his wife Sarai–at the time—fulfilled his sexual desires with Hagar and Sarai). Notice how the character that was starring as the vessel God used in the staged sermon was a little girl. She was being spiritually groomed to be the puppet of a priest—"I love theater", she said. Then the pastor disrobes in front of her. This movie throws punches every 89 seconds and perhaps too artful for it's own good. It's a Socioeconomic, religious, racial, and gender commentary, but not simply a comedy. Tell us, like Prime, Netflix, and Hulu, that this is an irrelevant or satirical comedy.