'Single Moms Club' keeps the wine flowing

Polyhyphenate Tyler Perry is so impossibly prolific that sometimes you suspect he has a magical word processor that allows him to just type in a premise and print up a perfectly formatted screenplay. Then it's find a cast and roll cameras.

There's certainly something machine-tooled to his latest melodrama, The Single Moms Club. The category is five stressed-out women of disparate circumstances who get thrown together because of their unruly adolescent kids.

The spectrum of Single Moms runs from haughty, half-racist snob (Wendi McLendon-Covey of The Goldbergs) to hardheaded coffee-shop waitress (Cocoa Brown of Perry's Why Did I Get Married? spin-off For Better or Worse), who takes buses all over town.

The result is like a well-intentioned adult Afterschool Special, during which one character declares, "I'm determined that women can have it all." (Guess who gets denied the promotion she earned?)

The first half of the movie is spent heaping unfair and unreasonable problems on these ladies. Then they put aside their differences and form a mutual support group, which mostly means drinking wine together before lunch. (You don't have to be a single mom to make your troubles disappear that way.)

Things improve rapidly after that. They all get dreamy lovers (like Ryan Eggold of The Blacklist for Amy Smart and Perry for Nia Long).

The moral here is that no challenge is insurmountable if you form a club. And keep a wine opener handy.

The Single Moms Club ** (out of four stars)

Directed, written, and produced by Tyler Perry. With Nia Long, Cocoa Brown, Wendi McLendon- Covey, and Amy Smart. Distributed by Lionsgate.

Running time: 1 hour, 51 mins.

Parent's guide: PG-13 (adult themes)

Playing at: area theatersEndText

215-854-4552 @daveondemand_tv