Lately, the conversations around the demise of the black family and black relationships have mostly given a voice to black women. Even more specifically, the focus has been narrowed to a sub-population of women, financially and academically successful black women, as if the rest of the community has no voice and does not matter.
Finally, Diary of a Tired Black Man explodes on to the scene to shake the dust off of the trite "good black man shortage" formula and open up the dialog to the entire community. What really caught my attention is how we finally get to hear from black men speaking with black men. No, it's not locker-room talk about sexual escapades. Rather, these men are giving first hand accounts of their struggles within relationships.
The film is an entertaining and illuminating collage of street interviews and short vignettes. The vignettes, illustrative autobiographical shorts that highlight the struggles of the film maker's past relationship, bring together the myriad of thoughts, confessions, and accounts of the real people who are interviewed. I found that the theatrical interludes worked well juxtaposed with the impromptu interviews. I gave it one less star than ten because I didn't think that all the the acting was executed as well as it could have been.
Diary of a Tired Black Man is an important piece that I'm sure will make an impression on anyone who views it. For the first time, I could see very clearly how: * The notorious "attitude" that many men complain about is actually very common, contrary to my previous belief. * The "attitude" often manifests as misdirected anger and verbal abuse. * The broad generalizations about women that sound unfair to my ears actually come from the hurt that men have experienced in past/ current stressful relationships and family experiences.
I gave this film a 7/10 stars because I love the intent and the approach and I believe it's an important project, but the acting was lacking and the accompanying online forum contains a suspicious amount of hype-generation/ hoaxing from fictitious writers.