The problems are real; the solutions are ... well, really entertaining. Perry mixes heartfelt drama with bold-stroke, insult-slinging comedy.

Though fans might miss Perry's genre-exploding daring, the excellent cast injects enough pathos and zing to keep picture percolating.

More than anything, a Tyler Perry movie is an interactive experience, and Why Did I Get Married? is no exception. At the screening I attended, it was often difficult to hear the dialogue between bouts of enthusiastic applause and shouts of "You go, girl!"

Perry is of the spell-everything-in-capital-letters and act-it-out-loudly schools. Yet his sensitivity to women is a tonic.

The most disappointing thing here, besides Perry's ongoing visual impairment (he deserves better cinematography and editing) is Scott.

Perry certainly loves his divas -- the best parts are written for Scott and the wonderful Smith.

The writer-director-producer-star would rather save your soul and your marriage than engage your aesthetics. That's probably why every other line was greeted at my screening with a chorus of stern "Mm-hmms" and "Exactlys!"

The movie has a better sense of flow than his past efforts, and a few lengthy travelling Steadicam shots and some decent mountain scenery (supplied by B.C. rather than Colorado) help dispel the feeling that Perry has merely filmed another of his plays.

Smith emerges as this subtlety-impaired film's most intriguingly ambiguous character, at times an acid-tongued shrew and at others a bluntly righteous truth-teller. The liveliness of her performance helps ensure that while Married is stiffly written, didactic, and whiplash-inducing in its tonal shifts, it's also very seldom dull.

As has been previously demonstrated in the hugely successful Perry's stage, television and big-screen works, subtlety and tonal consistency are not his strong suits. Here, the mostly broadly drawn characters and situations on display quickly prove grating, with the film veering awkwardly between broad comedy and melodrama.

Perry hasn't lost his touch for stroking his loyal audience of Oprah women; his enforced happy endings are the car keys taped under your seat.