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Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls: Navigation

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Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that the movie includes scenes that show and imply child abuse. One character reportedly hits her youngest daughter (bruises are visible on the girl's back), a drug dealer sends a 12-year-old to school with a joint to sell, and an irresponsible mother yells at her three daughters, offers her 12-year-old a drink, and insists they all watch a brutal beating in order to make them "tough." The mother smokes cigarettes and wears revealing clothing. The kind grandmother dies of lung cancer. There's yelling and some pushing and hitting between a father and a bad boyfriend; the showdown begins with violent car crash and ends with ferocious beatings in the street. Reference to a rape. A drunken sexual initiation leads to off-screen vomiting instead of sex. Brief kissing leads to off-screen sex. Language is mild but the derisive terms "Steppin' Fetchit" and "slave" are used.

Families might want to talk about the dynamic between the girls and their respective parents. What do your kids make of the child abuse? Who is sympathetic and why? Who isn't? How does the movie convey that? Another good topic to discuss is how the film uses stereotypes to direct its focus on moral choices and spiritual resolve.

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs

None of Tyler Perry's movies is subtle. But in DADDY'S LITTLE GIRLS, he goes without his broadest invention, the wildly popular drag character Madea. Instead, this film digs into Perry's most melodramatic and stereotypical inclinations to date, exploring class conflicts, single parenting, and the horrible ways that drugs, violence, and gang-bangers affect regular folks in an Atlanta neighborhood.

Monty (Idris Elba) is a good-hearted mechanic living in the city's Edgewood section. He works as a mechanic to support his three daughters: 5-year-old China (China Anne McClain), 7-year-old Lauryn (Lauryn Alisa McClain), and 12-year-old Sierra (Sierra Aylina McClain). They're living with his ex-mother-in-law (Juanita Jennings), until, at the film's start, she dies of lung cancer. Monty briefly brings the girls home to his one-bedroom apartment, but then their long-absent, excessively trashy mother Jenny (Tasha Smith) arrives, demanding custody -- not because she actually wants them, but because she wants to make Monty miserable.

Jenny's scene at her mother's funeral presages more serious trouble: She and her live-in boyfriend -- drug dealer/local menace Joe (Gary Sturgis) -- gain custody of the girls (begging the question of what kind of judge hands over children to drug dealers who wear chains and baseball caps to court) and proceed to use the girls for various evil ends. For example, Joe sends Sierra to school with a joint to sell and hits little China, while Jenny takes a bizarre delight in watching her daughters cry. A disappointingly outsized villain, Jenny fills up the space left by Madea -- only she's not as strong, entertaining, or even convincing as Perry's alter ego.

Still, Jenny provides Monty with an estimable obstacle; his new girlfriend, high-powered lawyer Julia (Gabrielle Union) says Jenny exemplifies Monty's "interesting taste" in women. Their relationship takes up most of the movie's energy, as broad-shouldered, affectionate, self-secure Monty makes Julia feel "safe." She's in particular need of this feeling, apparently, because her lawyer father pressured her into professional greatness (she's a "daddy's girl"). That Monty is initially her driver complicates the romance briefly, as does the fact that she represents his daughters in court.

Advised by a couple of catty, profoundly unhelpful best friends (including Tracee Ellis Ross) not to "sleep around with the help," Julia eventually makes up her own mind ... sort of. But her route to independent thinking and faith is bumpy (in one of the movie's many dizzying contrivances, she learns the "real truth" about her man via a TV news report). Monty's own route includes another kind of shortcut: He spends exactly one scene in church, where a sermon about the "due season" that God will deliver turns all his upset around. From here, he slides into a series of plot shorthands: spiritual salvation, economic salvation, romantic bliss. Done.

Fans might enjoy Perry's other movies, including Madea's Family Reunion. Or, for other boundary-crossing romances, try the R-rated Deliver Us from Eva (starring Union), or the PG-13 films Brown Sugar and Something New.

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Content
		CS	adults	kids
Sexual Content Flirting between romantic leads; sexual activity implied by kissing; sexual activity initiated by drinking; some tight and/or cleavage-revealing outfits; some slangy allusions (wannabe rapper admires a woman's "sexy-ass lips" and wants her legs around his waist and face); some derogatory sexualized language ("tramp," "slut," "whoring around"); Cynthia appears in bed with her boyfriend, both in their underwear and under the covers.
Violence Child abuse is suggested (visible bruises, etc.); fights involve shoving, punching, and kicking; Jenny clobbers a dealer who owes Joe money, then watches and laughs as Joe's crew kicks the guy (when her children cry, she laughs at them, too); Willie appears with cut face and bandage on arm, attributing it to a knife attack; climax is initiated by a violent car crash, then a fight in the street (bloody, aggressive punching and kicking, followed by attacks with a pan and a pole). Reference to a rape.
Language Mild language, including "hell," "ass," and "damn," as well as derogatory remarks concerning Monty's work as a limo driver ("little massa's boy," "slave," "Steppin' Fetchit").
Message
	Social Behavior A drug dealer and his girlfriend seek and briefly take custody of her daughters -- despite their obvious inability to care for them -- and eventually abuse them (bruises on one girl's back are shown); a vengeful father crashes his car into his ex-wife's; technicalities (and lack of witnesses) allow the drug dealer to escape justice until the film's end; complaints about the ineffectiveness of politicians and police in underclass neighborhood; haughty upper-class women disparage a mechanic's status and "intentions" regarding their friend.
	Commercialism Reference to TV show Punk'd; shot of a Pepperidge Farm treats bag.
	Drug/Alcohol/Tobacco Jenny smokes cigarettes (even after her mother, also a smoker, dies of lung cancer); repeated references to Joe's drug dealing; reference to "crackhead" and brief, opening-credits-sequence shot of man who appears to be a junkie; Sierra brings a joint to school, having been instructed to sell it (Joe and her mother believe she needs a "hustle"); characters drink wine, beer, and liquor; after a night in a bar downing shots, Julia drunkenly pursues sex with Monty, who goes along until she bolts off screen to vomit in the bathroom (repeatedly).

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