Why Did I Get Married? is a 2007 dramedy starring Tyler Perry, Janet Jackson, Jill Scott, Malik Yoba, Sharon Leal, Tasha Smith, Michael Jai White, Richard T. Jones, Lamman Rucker and Keesha Sharp.
Four couples go on a retreat in a Colorado cabin and assess their bubbling issues within their own respective marriages and with each other. Drama and hijinks ensue.
A sequel, titled Why Did I Get Married Too?, was released in 2010 featuring almost everyone from this film.
This film provides examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Angela likes to carry a bottle of alcohol with her everywhere she goes.
- Annoying Laugh: Mike's laugh can seriously grate on the nerves. It's a very awkward sound, and most of the time, he only laughs after he's said something horrible about Sheila.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Sheila. When she finds out about Mike's affair with Trina, she gets so angry that she takes a wine bottle and hits Mike on the head with it, knocking him out.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Trina. She acts nice to everybody and smiles in Sheila's face, but she's sleeping with Mike behind her back.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Dianne & Terry give out good points during their argument that (almost) led to a divorce. Terry talks about how Dianne is to fixated on her job that she seems to forget about her family. He also talks about how he just wants her to spend more time with him. When Terry talks about how Dianne is selfish for getting her tubes tied without telling him, Dianne makes a good point about how Terry doesn’t have to carry a child and miss work if he ever plans on having kids. She also isn’t wrong about how demanding her job as a lawyer is.
- The Bully: An adult, husband version with Mike. You can clearly see how much joy he gets out of insulting Sheila's appearance and putting her down in front of anyone within earshot. And unfortunately since the only person who ever calls him out on it is Angela, his friends are effectively enabling his behavior.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Angela is loud, obnoxious, yet it was revealed that she held a college degree in Chemistry and owns a hair business.
- Catchphrase:
- Angela loves to shout "MARCUS!!!!!!"
- Marcus has the tendency to say "y'know what I'm sayin'?" when he's lying.
- Chubby Chaser: Inverted. Mike fat shames Sheila and ends up having an affair with Sheila’s thin friend, Trina.
- Dissonant Serenity: When Sheila runs into Trina again after marrying Troy and shedding a lot of weight, Sheila recounts how she thought about cursing her out or beating her ass for what Trina did to her, then casually and subtly threatens her...all with a beaming smile on her face.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Sheila becomes this in one scene when she focuses too much on some of Troy's body parts to actually pay attention to what he's saying.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: The way Angela treats Marcus wouldn’t be Played for Laughs if the genders were reversed.
- Dramatic Irony: Sheila tells Angela that the latter and Marcus need prayer. They also get into an argument about how Angela feels towards Trina. Sheila tells Angela that she doesn't know Trina. The thing is, the audience and Angela know that Trina is sleeping with Sheila's husband.
- Easily Forgiven: Mike, Angela, and Dianne. While Mike does get a whack on the head, divorced, and ends up with a gold digger, somehow, his friends forgive him and are still in his life after all he put Sheila through. Angela cheats and gives Marcus an STD in addition to the constant nagging and verbal abuse, but she gets to keep her marriage. Dianne neglects her husband and daughter (though she does have being a lawyer to blame) and gets her tubes tied without at least discussing it with her husband first, but she too keeps her marriage intact.
- Establishing Character Moment: When viewers are introduced to Angela, she's speaking with her usual No Indoor Voice while arguing with Marcus on public transit. She's also embarrassing herself and Marcus as well.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Downplayed by Sheila with Trina. Sheila ends up getting angry with Mike only for cheating on her, but calmly confronts Trina at the near end of the film.
- Extreme Doormat: Both Shelia and Marcus are this to their more domineering spouses, especially the former who allowing her husband's abusive behavior out of love for him and zero confidence in herself.
- Foreshadowing: At the beginning when giving a speech to her class, one of the students asks Dr. Agnew how are things in her marriage, especially in regards to the loss of her son. At that exact moment, Gavin walks in to inform her not to miss their flight and she replies happily as she points him out, "Well, that's how our marriage is." Rewatching the scene, you'll notice that a), Gavin wasn't exactly happy to see her, and b), Patricia stealthily dodged the student's question. In watching the the film further and particularly the sequel, we learn why.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Mike is a borderline Hate Sink to the audience, but even his friends don't really seem to enjoy his company all that much. He really only interacts with the men and he starts arguments more often than not, and the women seem to dislike him except for Sheila, who is an extreme doormat. It's possible the women really just like Sheila and put up with Mike so they can spend time with her.
- Gold Digger: What Trina is ultimately discovered to be.
- Good Parents:
- Terry is this towards his daughter.
- Marcus as well towards his kids he had with Keshia.
- Grew a Spine: Marcus, who stood up to Angela and Keisha during an argument with them and asserted himself for the rest of the film to the point of his wife fearing him.
- Sheila, who divorces Mike and eventually starts a loving relationship with the small town sheriff at the retreat.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Sheila gives Mike a well-deserved one after she finds out that he had an affair with her best friend, Trina.
- Happily Married: The point of the movie is to deconstruct this trope.
- Hate Sink: Mike is a good example, being a verbally abusive philandering jerk to Shelia and even having no qualms of wrecking his friends' marriages by telling their secrets (and yet they rather quickly forgive him.) He gets better in the sequel, though.
- Henpecked Husband: You can obviously see who wear the pants in Angela and Marcus’ marriage.
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Hollywood Homely: The thought that Jill Scott is supposed to be unattractive just because she's in a fat suit is...laughable, to say the least. - Hot Guy, Ugly Wife: Sheila and Troy eventually become a subversion of this. Sheila is overweight, while Troy is buff and handsome. While Sheila isn't ugly, she's made out to be fat throughout the movie and her weight is commented on many times.
- Housewife: Shelia is this, with Mike being the sole breadwinner in their marriage. She is also the only one of her friends to be one, as Patricia is a psychiatrist, Dianne is a lawyer and Angela is a beautician who owns her own successful shop and a hair care line.
- Hypocrite: Mike criticizes Angela for how she treats Marcus, despite Mike treating Sheila just as bad.
- Insufferable Genius: Patricia comes off as this regarding her psychology knowledge. Other characters call her out on this.
- Jerkass:
- Mike and Trina for betraying Sheila. The former for cheating on her and the latter for sleeping with Mike, knowing that he and Sheila were married.
- Keshia is also one for starting drama with Angela and trying to get her kids to turn against Angela simply because Marcus moved on from her and married Angela.
- Jerkass Has a Point: The group gets upset with Angela for acting like a bitch towards Trina and revealing her and Mike's affair. Angela may have been over the top, but she was completely right to expose Mike and Trina as the jerks they were for betraying Sheila.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Angela comes off as loud and obnoxious, but she has moments that show that she cares for her husband and friends. A good example is when she had the guts to reveal to Sheila that Mike and Trna were having an affair during the infamous dinner scene.
- Patricia comes off as self righteous, but she’s still a decent person most of the time.
- Karma Houdini:
- Mike in a sense. For a filmmaker who tends to have the villains of his movies sent to prison, shot and left broke and be scalded with grits, the worse punishment he receives is being left with a Gold Digger and receiving a stern talking to from the woman he abused and demoralized throughout the film.
- The fat-shaming Jerkass who got Shelia kicked off the plane in the beginning of the film vanishes after that scene and is never mentioned again.
- Kick the Dog: As much as Mike degrades Shelia throughout the film, two particularly cruel moments stand out; first when on the plane to head over to Colorado, he refused to publicly defend her after being told to get off due to her size, insisting that he had been telling her for months to lose weight and the second time was when she bought some lingerie for him and he laughed at her and told her she looked bad in it.
- Large Ham: Angela loves putting emphasis on her words when she yells.
- Married to the Job: Deconstructed. Dianne's job as a lawyer comes first, even to the point of forgetting Terry's birthday. She also forgets to pick up her daughter from school a few times, and she has had a heated argument with Terry which almost led to a divorce. It's reconstructed in the end when Diane and Terry make up, and it doesn't become an issue in the sequel anymore.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Dianne accused Terry of cheating on him with a woman he had in his house that assisted him on daily tasks. She gets proven wrong.
- Mr. Fanservice: There is a scene with Troy in a wife beater on and Sheila secretly gushes over him.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Debatable with Trina, as she seems to be embarrassed and remorseful when the truth about her sleeping with Mike is revealed. However, she doesn’t apologize to Sheila so it’s likely that she’s sorry about being caught rather than her actions. Patricia has guilt over her son's death, which she indirectly caused.
- Nice Guy: Troy, Sheila's second husband after she and Mike divorce.
- Nice Girl: Shelia. Unfortunately, it also crosses over into Good Is Dumb.
- No Indoor Voice: Angela is so loud that even other strangers comment on it. She goes as far as to embarrass Marcus a few times with her obnoxiousness.
- Only Sane Woman: Angela usually averts this, but she was the only one who was willing to tell Sheila sooner about Trina and Mike's affair. This was while Patricia and the others convinced her not to do so.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Patricia and Gavin lost their young son, Noah, in a car accident prior to the film.
- Pet the Dog: Although she was revealed to be a horrible friend, Trina does this when she offers to give up her seat on the airplane so Sheila could ride. It’s only because Mike refused to let her do so that she didn’t.
- Phrase Catcher: Angela always shouts "MARCUS!!!!" towards the latter.
- Pretty in Mink: In the Aspen scenes, the women are wearing some pretty fancy fur coats. Even Trina shows up in a stylish red fox jacket.
- Rage Breaking Point:
- Marcus has two: when he gets so angry after finding out that Angela gave him an STD and let him think that he caught it himself that he tries to choke her and after being fed up with her and Keesha's fighting that he tells them off and storms away.
- Sheila hits it when finding out Mike and Trina are having an affair and he's divorcing her. She hits him with a wine bottle, knocking him out.
- Secret Test of Character: Terry pulls one on Dianne after she comes home and insists she will try to do better after the big fight they had where she accused him of sleeping with his assistant. Terry, straightfaced, tells her the assistant is pregnant with his child and asks what Dianne wants to do about it. Clearly shocked, Dianne continues insisting she is willing to make that work. Terry then reveals he was lying, to the relief of the assistant that he didn't tell ahead of time that he'd test his wife. She reveals she has a boyfriend, which relieves Dianne immensely.
- Self-Made Woman: Angela. In spite of all her faults, she is a successful and competent business woman who not only developed her own hair care line, but also runs a fully staffed salon.
- Slut-Shaming: Angela never misses the chance to sham Trina for sleeping with Sheila's husband, Mike.Angela: Trick, was anybody talking to you?Trina: Trick?Angela: Yes, trick. As in slut, whore, tramp. You don't know your name?
- Smug Snake: Mike. He damn near proud of getting away with openly insulting Sheila, likely because almost no one ever stands up for her or tells him to stop talking about her that way.
- Stupid Evil: Mike, for bringing Trina along to their couples retreat. It would be one thing if it wasn't already glaringly obvious he's having an affair with her, but not only does he take a non-married girl with him to the retreat, he literally is still fucking her on the trip with other people around including Sheila. Angela sees him sneak out of his room into Trina's, so he's either so stupid he doesn't think it's a bad idea or he's so overconfident with getting away with it that he still sleeps with her while his wife is under the same damn roof. There are no words for how idiotic this behavior is and it of course gets him caught in the end.
- Take That!: "If you so damn tender-headed, then get outta my chair, looking like "Next Ghetto's Top Weave"!note
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Sheriff Troy fits the qualifications. And he's a Nice Guy to boot.
- Tranquil Fury: When Angela reveals during dinner that Mike cheated on Sheila with the latter's best friend, Sheila is shocked and then gets angry. She sits at the dinner table angry for a few minutes. Then when Mike gets up to leave the table, she takes an empty wine bottle and smashes it on the back of Mike's head, stands up, and leaves the table (still angry).
- Truth in Television: When Sheila wants to board the plane to travel to Colorado, she is told by a flight attendant that she will have to buy an extra plane ticket to ride the plane due to her being overweight. This forces Sheila to leave the airplane. This actually applies in real life for overweight passengers.
- Wham Line: Angela confessing to Sheila was what changed the plot during the infamous dinner table sceneAngela: You know, I'm so sick of this. I'm sick of it. The reason she can't go with this man or any other man is because she's sleeping with yours, Shelia.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: This is the issue with Dianne and Terry's marriage. The former is too caught up in her job as a lawyer to pay attention to her daughter and she ignores her husband most of the time. It even causes an argument that got so heated that Terry was willing to divorce Dianne. Luckily, they reconcile at the near end.
- Would Hit a Girl: Marcus chokes Angela after he finds out she gave him an STD and manipulated him into thinking he got it from someone else.
- You Are Fat: Mike fat shames Sheila when the latter tries to seduce him in lingerie.Mike: I made her drive, we took the plane. I should've made her walk, y'all know she fat as hell.
