‘Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story’ Review: Adoring Doc Shows How Trauma Shaped the Showbiz Disruptor
variety.comPeter Debruge Chief Film Critic Ultra-prolific writer-director, fiercely independent producer, pioneering entrepreneur, self-made studio chief.
Any and all of these labels apply to Tyler Perry, though the one he chooses for himself is “Maxine’s Baby” — the same moniker that documentary duo Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz opted to give their motivational profile of the boundary-obliterating multi-hyphenate, who comes off disarmingly humble for someone who’s achieved so much.
While not quite hagiography, the worshipful project is so committed to touting Perry’s accomplishments that it takes the rare step of counting his agents and publicist (whose actual job it is to hype him) among its adoring sources.
Early on, Perry’s plays and films served both to inspire and provide moral example, heavy-handedly addressing topics such as infidelity, drug addiction and child sexual abuse that Black audiences were most accustomed to hearing about in church than on the big screen.
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