Review: A Fall from Grace

Crystal Fox in A Fall from Grace

A Fall from Grace is a 2020 release from Tyler Perry’s Studio in Atlanta. The main stars of this suspenseful mystery are women.

There are some spoilers ahead.

A Fall from Grace has an old fashioned feel. It’s like the noir mysteries we’ve seen so many times from the 1940s and 1950s, except with a white cast. Now, in this drama written and directed by Tyler Perry, we have a terrific almost all Black cast telling a suspenseful and dark mystery.

First we meet Jasmine (Bresha Webb). She’s a lawyer in the public defender’s office. She’s never tried a case and always goes for a plea deal. Her husband Jordan (Matthew Law) is a cop.

The news is full of the murder case involving Grace Waters (Crystal Fox). She confessed. It should be an open and shut deal to get her a plea arrangement with the D.A. The boss in the public defender’s office is Rory (Tyler Perry). He sends Jasmine to get a plea deal signed by Grace ASAP.

When Jasmine visits Grace in jail, things just don’t add up right. Grace wants to sign the plea deal, but Jasmine hesitates. There’s no body. The blood spatter looks wrong. Jasmine convinces Grace to tell her what happened. Grace’s story is told in flashbacks as Jasmine talks with her.

Grace tells about going to a gallery opening at the urging of her friend Sarah (Phylicia Rashad). Sarah had seen Grace through a divorce and thought she should start up a social life again.

Grace met Shannon (Mehcad Brooks) at the gallery. He was the artist. He paid attention to her. He was charming and handsome. And young! He courted and wooed her and asked her to marry him. She was madly in love.

After they were married things went haywire. Money disappeared from the bank where Grace worked. Suddenly her home, which was paid off, had a mortgage again and the loan was overdue.

Grace was ruined. Shannon didn’t care.

Grace said she murdered Shannon. But there was no body.

Crystal Fox, Tyler Perry, Bresha Webb, and Donovan Christie Jr. in A Fall from Grace

Jasmine convinced Grace to go to trial. It was Jasmine’s first court case and she was not confident about her skills as a trial attorney.

There are some wonderful twists as the trial proceeds. After the trial the whole situation is upended. It’s a great third act for this film. The magnificent Cicely Tyson has a part in the ending.

It was the twists at the end that gave A Fall from Grace its noirish old fashioned feel. It changed it from a story about a woman who wanted to confess to a murder and her inept defense attorney to something unexpected.

A Fall from Grace poster

Here’s the trailer. I tried to write this review without any more spoilers than you see in the trailer. How did I do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxLb3aLb5j4

If you’ve seen this mystery, I’d like to hear your reactions.

1 thought on “Review: A Fall from Grace”

  1. Pingback: Review: A Fall from Grace – Old Ain’t Dead – Bugaluu

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