I've never been much of a fan of soap operas. Make no mistake about it; Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys is a soap opera. There is marital infidelity, plotting and betrayal, intertwining families, occasional swelling music. Much of the plot is driven by lust and greed and hubris. I pretty much expected that I'd be put off from the film because of the little I knew of it. Yet, among all the things I don't like about such melodramas there was an underlying story that began to redeem the film.

The film centers on two matriarchal families, the Cartwrights (white and rich) and the Pratts (African American and getting by). The two families have been interacting for the past thirty years. One of Alice Pratt's daughter, Andrea, and two of her sons-in-law work for the Cartwright's construction company. They were hired by Charlotte Cartwright's son who runs the family business. Alice's other daughter, Pam, works with Alice at A Wing and a Prayer Diner, where some weeks they just don't make enough, but somehow they get by. The intra- and extra-family relationships intermingle in numerous permutations and generate all the soap opera aspects of the film.

But the real heart of the film is found in the relationship of the two matriarchs, Alice and Charlotte. They have been friends for thirty years. They seem to have very little in common, but we find out that they became friends because when Charlotte met Alice they shared iron wills. These are two formidable women. They each have a sense of wisdom about them. Charlotte is the more worldly of the two. Alice isn't separate from the world, but she has a spiritual center.

Alice is unabashedly Christian. We see her at choir practice, but even more we see her faith lived out each day. At the diner a homeless man comes in from time to time. Alice treats him with respect, gives him a chance to clean up, feeds him and listens to whatever it is he has to say. It is especially fun to see Alice live her faith when Charlotte hauls her along for a trip to a male strip show. That sense of a spiritual life is par for Tyler Perry films.

Charlotte buys a vintage car and decides to take a cross country trip with no particular agenda. She talks Alice into going along and off they go, headed west. Here we really begin to see the love that these two women share. All their differences -- wealth, race, use of alcohol -- seem to vanish as they spend their time on the road. Charlotte actually does have an agenda, but we don't find that out for a while. All that seems to matter is that they get to do the things they've never done before. They go off and leave (or try to leave) all their cares behind for a little while.

We see that these two women have much to teach one another. Charlotte shows Alice the world outside her diner and family. Alice shows Charlotte a bit of what it means to live by faith. Both need to learn the wisdom the other has to teach. Charlotte once asked Alice, "Are you living or are you existing?" Life, rather than mere existence, is what each manages to find on their little road trip.

If one looks beyond the soap opera nature of this film, there is a reward to be found, just as if we get beyond the external circumstances of the people involved, there is much more there than we may have thought.