Couples Therapy Likely More Fun Than "Think Like a Man"

Based on Original King of Comedy and Family Feud host Steve Harvey's self-help primer Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, this adaptation often plays like a book on tape. The women characters, advising one another about 90-day rules and "controlling the cookie," begin their lines with "As Steve...

By Melissa Anderson

April 19, 2012

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Based on Original King of Comedy and Family Feud host Steve Harvey's self-help primer Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, this adaptation often plays like a book on tape. The women characters, advising one another about 90-day rules and "controlling the cookie," begin their lines with "As Steve Harvey says...," and the author himself (who is also executive producer) frequently pops up, directly addressing the camera and quoting himself. When the male counterparts of four dyads — one long-term couple plus three sets of daters — realize their girlfriends have been putting Harvey's words into action, they strike back with calculations of their own, the manipulations apparently laying the groundwork for fulfilling relationships based on trust and open communication. Enduring a daylong session of couples' therapy is more fun (and flies by faster) than this film, but relief is found whenever Michael Ealy, as a caterer trying to impress Taraji P. Henson's class-conscious CEO, and the redoubtable ham Jenifer Lewis, mother to a worshipful son, are onscreen.

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Melissa Anderson is the senior film critic at the Village Voice, for which she first began writing in 2000. Her work also appears in the publications of the Voice’s film partner, Voice Media Group: LA Weekly, Denver Westword, Phoenix New Times, Miami New Times, Broward-Palm Beach New Times, Houston Press and Dallas Observer.