Metacritic Film

Dirty Laundry

Starring Rockmond Dunbar, Loretta Devine, Jenifer Lewis, Terri J. Vaughn, Maurice Jamal, Sommore, Joey Costello, and Alec Mapa

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for language, some sexual content and thematic elements

Codeblack Entertainment
Comedy  |  Drama
100 minutes | Color
USA
Released In Theaters December 7, 2007

Dirty Laundry is a serious comedy about family drama. A modern-day prodigal son story with a twist, the film follows a traditional southern family dealing with the return of the prodigal son Patrick, a successful Manhattan writer who suddenly left home and never looked back. After 10 years, Patrick has returned to discover a secret that could rock his seemingly "perfect" world. In the center of the conflict is his hard-edged mother Evelyn, whose own story holds as much drama and secrecy as her son's. (Codeblack Entertainment)

WRITTEN BY
Maurice Jamal

DIRECTED BY
Maurice Jamal

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

48 / 100

Critic Reviews

63 New York Daily News
Looking for plot holes? You can't miss them. But if you go in hoping for a good time, you'll find that, too.
60 Variety
Taking control of what would otherwise be a trite and preachy fable about the need for African American families to accept their gay brethren, Devine builds a jolly and touching character from the stock figure of a Georgia mom coming to terms with her disaffected gay son.
50 The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber
A comedy-drama with alarming similarities to a relic from 1976, "Norman, Is That You?" In that film, Redd Foxx and Pearl Bailey were parents shocked to discover that their son was gay and living with a white lover. That's basically the same gimmick in this new film from writer-director Maurice Jamal.
50 TV Guide
Jamal's comedy of family dysfunction is essentially a sitcom episode writ large; it's not subtle, but it's good-natured and hits its marks with ruthless efficiency.
50 New York Post
The tone is good-natured enough to make a simple movie semi-watchable.
50 The New York Times Matt Zoller Seitz
Mr. Jamal’s direction ranges from clumsy to competent, and the film’s overwhelming desire to be loved blunts any edge it might have had.
50 Los Angeles Times Gary Goldstein
Overwritten and under-directed by Maurice Jamal, the movie contains several honest moments but remains too awash in clichés and stereotypes to take seriously.
40 LA Weekly Julia Wallace
Cheesy crockpot of a film.

CLOSE THIS WINDOW

©2009 CNET Networks Inc. All rights reserved.