Taraji P. Henson as April
April is the main protagonist in the 2009 film Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself. She was a self-centered alcoholic singer who worked at a nightclub; she then later became the wife of the second protagonist of the film, Sandino.
She is played by Taraji P. Henson.
Overall[]
April is first seen performing Aretha Franklin's 1971 hit “Rock Steady” on stage at the nightclub where she works. She’s also in a relationship with a married man named Randy and she doesn't have any concern about his wife even if she tells him on the phone that they're expecting another child. She only tolerates him because he "pays the bills".
One afternoon, April is visited by her niece Jennifer, and 2 nephews Manny and Byron, along with Madea. Madea tells what Jennifer and the boys had done to her home and Joe's VCR. April informs her that they don't live with her, they live with her mother in which they tell April they were unable to find her.
Madea is demanding April to pay for the window and the VCR the children broke in her home but April suggested they do work around her house to pay it off and that they can stay with her until they can find their grandmother (April's mother). She has no maternal instincts and is upset that the children are there because she knows that Randy, even though he's a father himself, doesn't like kids.
April doesn't comfort the children over the disappearance of their grandmother and begins to argue with Jennifer and after the argument, Jennifer decides to leave and leave the boys behind. Things get even worse between the two when Jennifer and Pastor Brian arrive on April’s doorstep telling her that Jennifer was shoplifting at a store not far from the church. April was outraged over the news.
Later in the film, the pastor asks if she can help out a handyman named Sandino seeing how the house she inherited from her father has never been fixed and she agrees to take him in. One day, Pastor Brian and his wife Wilma pay her a visit to deliver some bad news; they tell her that her mother died on a bus on the way to work due to a brain aneurysm and April is devastated.
The couple presents her with an urn with her mother's ashes in it and Sandino agrees with the pastor to look after her. After their visit was over, April reveals to Sandino that the relationship she had with her mother was dysfunctional and that after an argument they once had, they never spoken to each her other again plus because her mother put other people's needs over her own. April never trusted people and reveals that her sister pimped Jennifer out for drugs when she was 9 years old, threw Byron in an oven, along with burning Manny with her crack pipe, and her mother had to rescue them over and over again.
Sandino gives her his condolences while Randy doesn't, in bed, pushes her off which soon makes her realize that her relationship with Randy is never working out. April and Sandino ride on a paddleboat ride at a local park, Sandino reveals that he has feelings for her, and the confession makes her uncomfortable, so she ends the outing. April is awaken by the noise and goes downstairs to see Randy and Sandino fighting, and she screams for Sandino to get off of Randy.
Sandino tells April that Randy tried to sexually assault Jennifer and Randy denies it and says that Jennifer tried to pay him for sex but Jennifer denies his allegations. After the fight, April ask Randy to take a bath, he agrees and she walks in the bathroom full of rage over what happened to Jennifer. She keeps asking Randy what happened between him and Jennifer and he keeps denying that he ever tried to sexually assault her. Getting more angered by this, April leaves the bathroom only to return with a radio.
April once again tries to get Randy to admit that he tried to molest Jennifer, but still, he keeps denying it. April puts the radio over the edge of the tub and tells Randy that this was the same lie her mother's boyfriend told her when he molested her which explains why she and her mother were never close and that her drinking problem and her low self-esteem were the reason that she’s been the way she is because of her mother believing her boyfriend over her, in addition to it being a shameful family secret April kept for years and she felt that her mother rescued her grandchildren but not her as a child.
Randy is terrified over the radio being on the edge of the tub and begs April to take it away from it but April refuses and drops the radio in the tub, electrocuting him but he quickly leaps out of the tub to save his own life. Sandino gives him 3 minutes to get out of the house and he agrees to leave, thus never seeing April again. April returns to the Indigo Club, drinking heavily and smoking due to guilt that she didn't see the signs that Randy could be a child molester; she knew he hated kids, but she didn't think he was attracted to them.
April also tells her friend Tanya that her mom should've recognized the signs of her lover looking at her too much but she didn't, then her guilt turns into anger and suspicion of Sandino looking after Jennifer and the boys. Once Sandino comes into the club to talk to her, she accuses him of being a child molester and he denies ever touching Jennifer inappropriately. He tells her that she's ruining her life and is running people out of her life plus he tells her he's been alone ever since he was a child in Mexico, and because of his parents death, he was forced into a drug trade when he was a child. April doesn't believe him and he leaves the club angrily and April goes with him and she calls him a child molester as he walks off.
Jennifer talks to April and says that Sandino always protected her against Randy's advances towards her and his cruelty towards her brothers and that April was too distrustful of anyone who was too nice to her, especially men.
Through her opened window, she can hear the church choir singing her mother's favorite song and she begins singing the song as well but Sandino unexpectedly visits. He shares her feelings for her and his hatred towards her smoking and drinking problems. April tells him that she's no good in relationships and she doesn't know how to love or be loved and he says to her he'll show her; he gives her a passionate kiss, and the two get married and have a block party reception at the conclusion of the film.