Alfre Woodard and Kathy Bates can’t salvage another awkward soap opera from writer-producer-director-star Tyler Perry. Bates plays Charlotte Cartwright, matriarch and controlling stockholder of a giant construction firm in Atlanta. Her best friend is Woodard’s Alice Pratt, a coffee-shop owner whose daughter (Sanaa Lathan) goes to work for Charlotte’s company and gets involved with her CEO son (Cole Hauser). It’s all rather dull if you don’t have laundry to fold while watching, a fact Perry seems to realize considering he sends Bates and Woodard on a desperate, third-act road trip to liven things up.
