Daddy's Little Girls Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
give life. teach love.
Having children made him a father. Taking care of them made him a man.
Family Comes First
She needs a good man. He wants a smart woman. There are only three things standing in their way.
A reverse-Cinderella tale centers on a successful attorney (Union) who falls in love with a financially challenged mechanic (Elba) who is a single father of three children. The relationship hits a snag when the mechanics ex-wife comes back into his life and threatens to take away their kids.
| Gabrielle Union | Julia |
| Idris Elba | Monty |
| Louis Gossett Jr. | Willie |
| Tasha Smith | Jennifer |
| Tracee Ellis Ross | Cynthia |
| Malinda Williams | Maya |
| Terri J. Vaughn | Brenda |
| Gary Anthony Sturgis | Joseph |
| Cassi Davis | Rita |
| Sierra Aylina McClain | Sierra |
| China Anne McClain | China |
| Lauryn Alisa McClain | Lauryn |
| Juanita Jennings | Katheryn |
| Maria Howell | Wife |
| Rochelle Dewberry | Miss Rochelle |
| Tyler Perry |
3.60 out of 10 (2753 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Excellent alternative to traditional Hollywood filmworks
posted on 20 Aug 2009Tyler Perry has done it again. He has made a film for his audience to enjoy and for his investors to appreciate. he proves again that a real story can outdo special affects.I am shocked at the negative backlash Tyler Perry productions have received. He emphasizes family values and faith in God that this country was founded on. He even makes us smile a bit while doing. If making wholesome, humorous and profitable movies is a crime, then what can we really say about our society.I guess if you do not like movies with Christian undertones, go see hellrider.
Capra-esquire
posted on 14 Aug 2009Tyler perry's latest effort follows in the frank Capra school of film-making. he takes a john doe and personalizes his struggle in what could be perceived as a weepy or cheesy manner, but it ultimately works because of the execution. let me get this clear up front: perry isn't frank Capra and this film isn't Mr. deeds goes to town or Mr. smith goes to Washington. of course, Capra was around longer when he made those and he had the efforts of greats like James Stewart and Gary cooper. but while this film doesn't reach the heights of Capra, it does tell a good, human story and it does so with some entertainment and humanity. some of the acting could have been better and i would have liked a fuller, more colorful (as in more entertaining or well-rounded) cast. one thing that makes Capra films (as well as Anthony Mann films) so good is the cast of secondary characters who act as foils to the protagonist, as well as offer comic relief. this film works because of the work perry does early in the film to establish some comedy and intrigue. just a couple touches here and there can be the difference between an engaged and invested audience and one that is checking their watches. B+.
Just SO SO
posted on 02 Aug 2009Gabrielle Union stars in her usual role, a stuck up "bitch" who REALLY needs love but refuses to let it find her because she had a previous bad relationship. She must control the situation and everything around it, and is easily coaxed by the other females around her. Most of the acting was pretty bad but the children were cute. The underlying story that is in ALL of Tyler Perry's writings "trust God and he will never leave you" is all over this movie. I think it is a good story to share with the family but it's just SO BANAL that I don't think I will want to see it again. The soundtrack seems like it will be awesome though. I just don't understand why he never puts that dang cell phone down or in his pocket or something!
Perry Has Yet to Fail Me
posted on 27 Jul 2009Pros: At the end of this movie, I was so salty that there wasn't more. I was entertained throughout and once again, Tyler Perry has created a masterpiece. I love the way he takes on controversial topics and creates believable tales that so many people can relate to. In this movie, we learn about a father who was imprisoned in the past and is now trying to do right for his children and himself. Of course there are obstacles, like his trifling wife who thinks money and the street life make the best men; a thug who likes to ridicule anyone who isn't on the same grind that he is; child custody; an ill mother; and an outstandingly snobbish lawyer who he has been hired to drive around to make ends meet outside of his job as a mechanic. When I saw the previews for this movie, I was thinking "Oh my gawd. Gabrielle Union is the lead in ANOTHER movie." I'd grown so tired of seeing her, but I LOVED her in this movie. To all you Union fans, now I understand why y'all love her so much. She was excellent. She brought out so many other sides of her acting that I'd never seen before (ex. vulnerability, elitism, comedy). Her comedic performance had the whole audience (it was packed in that theater) holding their sides in laughter. I never knew she could be so funny. The lead male character was so believable in his role to the point where I was wondering did he really live this life. I also love how the casting directors picked REAL people to be the extras; people you see everyday in church, walking down the street, living in the neighborhood, etc. I was also impressed with Tyra's friend, who plays the mother of Monty's children. I knew she was a good acting coach, but I didn't know she was this good of an actress! I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and look forward to many more. Perry hasn't failed me yet, and I doubt he could.Cons: The guy who played the main thug was not very good at it. He just looked like a grown, educated man trying to look hard. I wish they would've picked someone more believable to play his part. He looked more like he should've been the lawyer who was trying to put him in jail than the actual drug dealer.
Good but forgettable
posted on 11 Jul 2009Tyler Perry's Medea-less tale of a father trying to raise his daughters but finding trouble from the girls mother who has taken up with a drug dealer.Good little movie with a nice sense of place. Certainly moralistic and a tad simplistic (as all his stories are), but enjoyable none the less. Its a good film but has little that will make it stand out from the rest other than its good film. (I'm left to wonder if Perry's rather busy dance card will hurt his film out put since with a TV show and now several films a year I have to wonder if he will be able to craft films that stand out, or will they be like this good, but forgettable?) Worth watching- though odds are you'll forget you've ever seen it.
Daddy's Little Girls
posted on 03 Jun 2009I LOVED THE MOVIE--First of all, it was violence geared toward a particular individual for a VERY SPECIFIC REASON. Obviously you don't have children and apparently can't read. The title "DADDY'S LITTLE GIRLS" fits the reason for the violence. He (daddy) took care of the little girls all the time, not only with money, but by being there physically, mentally and emotionally. In order to understand Tyler Perry's movies/plays, one must be able to put themselves in the shoes of at least on character, or be BLACK (most white people don't understand and those that do, know or have been around plenty of Black people and can interpret how WE think) YES I AM BLACK AND CAN READ!!!
Tired of double-standards for films & filmmakers of color...
posted on 30 May 2009Lest we forget...remember when Hollywood (and the powers that be) orchestrated a negative PR campaign against Tyler's "Diary of..." because he refused to succumb to their dictation of what they thought his message should be for the movie screen? Remember Hollywood eating crow when "Diary" set box office records the first two weeks? Despite very nice studio profits, Tyler still had to show his ID to get in. Now, here we go again with "Daddy's Little Girls", and the cheap-shots. Despite another all-star African American cast, a stellar African American production team, movie critics are clogging up blogs dissecting "Daddy's" messenger, not "Daddy's" message. Once again, this is very unfortunate, not for Tyler, but for those who still, in 2007, have issues with spiritually-focused people of color reaching the masses through multi-diversed humanitarian works...stay awake, they went after Oprah two months ago for planting her South African seeds. I make conscious efforts to read favorable, and not-so-favorable comments and look for authentic opinions, constructive criticisms. When you start nic-picking the film with trivial references only to create arguments, you become suspect. Other suspect comments read shows more double-standards for African American films & filmmakers. Lest we forget, Tyler has raised the bar to African American film-making with stories and characters of substance...he has, and continues to receive more "substance" awards/praise for his uplifting vision...note to Hollywood, you other Americans and the powers that be, a change has been brewing in African American film-making to present positive African Americans in positive images all over the world...it's unfortunate that, in 2007, no matter where we excel, film, stage, TV, sports, freedom, is a constance struggle, lest we forget!
Wheres your movie?
posted on 10 May 2009I am a black male that just seen the movie today. And with me was a theater full of white Americans and we all attend Liberty University. As I was watching the movie my reactions were the same as my fellow college mates.Nonetheless, we all agreed that it was a great movie. So to speak racist comments on a movie over the internet is bizarre. All directors work hard rather white or black, so have a little respect for your fellow U.S citizens. Make comments about the ones who want to kill everyone in the U.S.A You all just please take time to think about what is going on in our world. God Bless you and I pray to our God that he may wash us all, so that we may see one another equal.
A Touching film
posted on 30 Apr 2009Honestly I usually don't comment on movies, but this is one that I could not vote on without leaving a comment. This movie is heartfelt and the cast was extraordinary. I will be buying this movie as soon as it hit stores. The love and loyalty this movie displayed was Phenomenal and I wish Tyler Perry, much success in the future. The plot was well explained and the cast played their roles like it was real. Tyler always seem to recognize talent, and he definitely put it all into this film. This movie made me cry and laugh all at the same time. This movie is the type of movie that will leave a smile on your face,once its all over.I recommend this movie to all people of all races, because this is a film that everyone can enjoy. When I say Tyler Perry has done it again, I mean it. He really created a movie that can leave great lasting impressions on anyone. I hope you all will watch this movie, because it truly is a movie that will remain in your heart.
Please don't read if you have not seen movie
posted on 13 Mar 2009Remember the sports announcer who publicly applauded the revenge fight on the football field? He was subsequently fired and many did not know why. Revenge violence is not the answer, and when Tyler Perry ends his movie with the car assault on his ex-wife and the brutal beating of the drug dealer, he is doing the same thing his enemies did to him. Perry adds slow motion so we see every bloody punch and plays a heart wrenching A Change is Gonna Come to top it off. Is this the answer we want for our girls and boys? Perry, please work a little harder to find an ending that is a real and viable answer to violence, but not more violence. I wondered why the movie got such a low rating because I really enjoyed it until the final scene and the answer to violence Perry gives. It was sad.
The film was decent
posted on 03 Mar 2009"Daddy's Little Girls" is a decent/good movie that could have been a great movie. I say that it is a decent movie because the overall plot was pretty solid and the acting was very good. However, it could have been a great film if the story could have been told with greater detail and the film had been better edited.Let's put it this way, if T.P. were to have written this film as a school paper, the teacher would have given it a C+. The theme and concept for the paper would have been sound and offered lots of potential – a solid B. However, due to punctuation errors, grammar errors, misspelled words and run-on sentences (For those who took English at Howard U – instant D)….the teacher was being nice to give T.P. a C+.T.P. has done only one great movie – "Diary Of A Mad Black Woman". The second film was cute. This 3rd film was OK. I will give him the benefit of the doubt for this film, he probably has many other things that he is working on. However, for the next film, he better take the time to write, direct and edit a high quality product.
Stilted acting sinks movie
posted on 14 Jan 2009I am not sure why Gabrielle Union keeps showing up in comedy movies, as she seems to have only one signature facial expression. The goofy smiling face never changes on Gabrielle Union. Whether she is delivering bad news, crying, or attending a funeral, Union always has the same smile on her face. I guess since she has a natural smiling face, the casting directors assume she is comedy material. Unfortunately, this movie is not very funny.Union's Loony Tunes reading of her lines should be good in a comedy, except that Union always seems very self-conscious of the fact that she is reading her lines. She never reacts to the situations, she is very unnatural and stilted. This makes it very difficult for her to capture the timing that is needed in a comedy. Premeditation seems to be her strong suit, and perhaps she would be better suited for legal dramas like Law and Order. I could see her as a good assistant prosecutor standing next to Jack McCoy (Sam Watterston), who has the same stiff acting style as Gabrielle Union. On the other hand, permanently grinning during a murder trial might not be good for the jury.
great Movie
posted on 08 Jan 2009I was sitting @ home on a Friday Night About to go to sleep My boyfriend called and asked me to go to the Movie.(i'm about 15-16 yrs old). So I decided to go to the Movies.Mean-while We saw this Movie and I thought it was great. I also cried it was so sad how the mom wanted her kid to sell some drugs and she really didn't want to do it but she had no other choice. @ 1st I thought he would never get his girls back, and when he did I was so happy. I felt that this is one of the 1st movies Tyler Perry ever did.. Keep doing yo thing.I feel that a white person can not go see this movie and understand. Its like a black thing. We need more Movies Black movies like this we had enough white movies. A couple of Black Movies @ the theaters Love a girl from United States
very unrealistic love
posted on 06 Jan 2009unrealistic.... so if you take out the whole lawyer and driver falling in love so unrealistically then you actually have a great story. it ain't all about love Tyler Perry.I loved the whole community and the boyfriend and Tasha Smith character, Union delivered well, but the entire story was as contrived as all the other Tyler drama.Is he trying to say this is what blacks want to watch?is he saying blacks cannot watch intellectual works? or maybe comprehend them?I don't see how anyone will think this is a good movie. I loved it as it started, but then the falling in love thing just took me out!!! Why couldn't Julia fall in love with the kind of man she wanted? a high class black man? It's very possible OK, that a highly educated black woman making 6 figures can meet a man who is her match.
The best Tyler Perry movie yet!
posted on 19 Dec 2008This is the best Tyler Perry movie yet! It is brilliant and sensitive as well as entertaining. Nothing superficial here. It's all about family. It remarkably deals with real situations that are happening today with our families: mothers who are victimized by drugs and who leave their children; mothers who place their 'man' before their children; the ravages of drugs; the system - Department of Children and Families Services, Children's Court and grandparents as parents.The acting is refreshing. Thank you Tyler Perry and cast for giving us an exceptional experience. This film has taken us to another level in relevant filming.Thank God!
my my my
posted on 03 Dec 2008What a great movie and I'll say it again about IDRIS....MY MY MY. Tyler Perry we need a sequel with Monty and Julia married, and the parents of a blended family. They have a son and the storyline centers around the maternal grandfather and treatment of the grandson vs the step granddaughters. Focus on Julia and Monty's rocky BUT sustained marriage/relationship because of the grandfathers favoritism. Monty wants to walk with the girls rather than have another man mistreat his girls. Julia initially lets him go but realizes she'd rather have the strong character of her husband in her son's life than the hypocritical/bourgeois influence of her father. One thing I request in the sequel that THERE WOULD BE MORE SEXUAL CHEMISTRY WITH MONTY AND JULIA
"Disgrace"
posted on 19 Nov 2008To the person that said that this movie was a disgrace, you obviously don't know what you are talking about. I cant believe that you have never seen anybody in a situation like this, and if you say that you haven't then you are not telling the truth. ANYBODY from any part of the world can have problems in their life, and sometimes violence is a part of that. No, violence isn't always the answer, but thats's reality. This movie could have been about Greeks, Chinese, Japanese, Italians, and yes, even your "perfect" well behaved Australians. So, you need to educate yourself about different cultures before you make a comment like that.
A utter disgrace
posted on 05 Nov 2008This movie displays African-American males as trash; violent and full of rage. An utterly disgraceful movie.If this is what American life is like, I am glad I am an Australian.Why would someone choose to show their society as like this. So full of stereotypes. Whilst I appreciate that this may represent a section of the community, then please place at least one African-American male in it that is not violent or unfaithful.Daddies little girls maybe, there are surely no little boys that he would have been proud of.
Basic writing with terrible development leaves the film high and dry from day one
posted on 01 Nov 2008Monty is an honest black man working as a mechanic, financially supporting his three daughters who live with his ex-wife's mother. When his mother-in-law dies, Monty is left looking after his daughters and takes on extra work as a driver for young, pretty and very successful lawyer Julia. His first day on the job brings disaster though as one of his daughters starts a fire, forcing him to take Julia to the hospital, getting him fired and social services handing his kids to their estranged mother (who lives with the local drug dealer). Monty is forced to go for custody to keep his girls but cannot get a lawyer and only a moment of kindness from Julia sees her take his case for free. While she works with him she begins to fall for his charms despite the gulf in their social status.I want to be clear that, although I came to this film off the back of The Wire, I did not expect it to be of the same quality (or even the same genre) and I did not come to it with my mind made up or some sort of chip on my shoulder that Elba should only do projects that Wire fans somehow approve of in line with his brilliant turn as Stringer Bell. No, I came to the film because I like him as a screen presence and was happy to see this film for what it was – a romantic drama. In the broad sweep the film is OK in very base terms but the biggest problem with it is evident from the very start. Within a few minutes of the start we have a saintly old woman coughing and come comments made about her health and I immediately said "she's not making it long into this" – fade to her funeral seconds later! This is one example but there are lots of examples of really poor development and convenient narrative jumps. This may not sound like a problem but consider the main thrust of the film is the relationship between Julia and Monty convincing and engaging.Sadly it never does and it felt like the writers had developed this in about three stages. 1: snotty impatient dislike of Monty; 2: he's not all bad but it's not for me; 3: Monty is the love of my life. The thing is that there is literally nothing between these stages and it feels like a switch has been flicked to move from one to another with the impact on the film being that it simply doesn't feel real. This left me not caring too much about the relationship throughout. The case of the title is similarly unengaging as it doesn't ring true either – it is written to elicit emotions from the viewer but by being so lame it just didn't suck me in or produce any dramatic tension at all. It isn't all bad though because it does have a very basic charm to it and, as a daytime TV movie, it would work really well for the target audience – it is just a shame that that is the best you can say about it because of how poorly written all of it is – the final five minutes being an example of everything being tied up whether it makes total sense or not. I understand that there is an element of Capraesque community fairytale here and I have no problem with that but didn't think it excused it from being "good" in areas of writing, characters and development.The reason for me coming to the film is one of its few strengths. Elba doesn't get anywhere near the complexity or intensity of Stringer Bell of course (not that the Emmy's would agree with my summary of his acting in that) but he still has a good presence and makes for a lovable lead character. His charm and looks does help the film get away with a lot. The harder acting role is Julia because you have to make this character change convincingly and also be horrid early on without pushing the audience away. The bad news is that this role went to Union, who doesn't have the greatest range. She cannot make it work and her performance is really simple and totally unconvincing as being a real person. Her looks do not help her that much here and the lack of reality in her character breaks the chemistry between her and Elba. The kids are cute and slightly annoying in their delivery, being too obvious in doing what they are doing. Nobody else has much to do – Gossett Jr rolls through in an attempt to add some weight to the film by his name, Smith, Ross, Williams, Vaughn and others all do the basics but not much more.Daddy's Little Girls is a very basic film that will work best in a few years when you stumble upon on in the middle of TVM stuff in the middle of a weekday but even then it is pretty thin stuff. It relies heavily on Elba and Union's performances, both of whom try their best but don't have decent characters and simply try to charm their way through. The writing is poor as it lacks any flow or development worth talking about and it feels like it was delivered in blocks. Were it funnier, more dramatic or more engaging, this wouldn't matter but the film is not good enough to cover the development problem and it gets dull and silly very quickly with only Afro-Caribbean TVM weepy fans being left loving it.
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Its OK
posted on 22 Aug 2009This movie is in between. Neither good nor bad. I honestly feel that Tyler Perry's previous movies were much better, I felt more affection towards the characters. I even cried during the endings and everything. In this movie I didn't like them much. Specially the little girls, why the need to be so rude? And Monty(the dad) just sitting there like its okay..I just feel the characters should have been more likable. There just wasn't enough like in the other films by Perry. The fighting scene was hilarious because they were punching pure air(how badly filmed that was). But overall the movie was OK, the first 45min. had me there! But then, I just started to lose the interest. Rated it 5/10 Hope that Perry goes back to making movies like Diary of a Mad black woman and Madea's family reunion.