Acrimony (also known as the producer, director and writer Tyler Perry's Acrimony) is a prime example of when the movie gets too ambitious for its own good. That burning ambition pulls Acrimony from a solid four-stars to its present rating of two stars.

Perry has never been a subtle, gentle or even a visually elegant filmmaker, but he is known for his stories and characters that draws-in his audience, despite having a fallibility for being too crude, generic or preachy. The crudeness isn’t bad when done right, which he does every so often in Why Did I Get Married? and his family-driven movies that have a wholesome tug to them.

Acrimony had the same genuine-melodrama appeal to it, but things don’t end too well for the movie, with Shah Rukh Khan’s Darr-like melt down at the climax.

The story begins with a restraining order put against Melinda (Taraji P. Henson both imploring and menacing – sometimes at the same time). She is bothering her ex-husband Robert (Lyriq Bent) and his new lady-love (Crystle Stewart). To cope with her anger issues, the court orders Melinda to get counselling. It is here that the word “Acrimony” is explained with it synonyms. It is one of the few words that sprout through the movie, dividing the story into chapter that relate to Melinda’s emotion.

We go through her life in a linear flackback, as Robert becomes her husband. We also get to know that she has two powering sisters and a sensible friend. Melinda, who is dedicated to her husband, work and family, has a jealous streak that consumes her when she once found out Robert was cheating. In brief moments like these, her pent up aggression and bitterness with life in general, explodes with the power of nuclear blast.

The movie thrives in the drama as it piles on the struggles of a working woman, her idle, dreamer husband and the realities of a struggling life – and later the divorce, unhappiness, continued sourness as Robert finds happiness and she doesn’t. Acrimony makes complete sense till this point.

However, Perry goes down a campier and slasher thriller road, in an unneeded and botched climax. If Acrimony was only kept to the drama, it would have made a better movie.