Confused by the Kelly Rowland movie Mea Culpa? Read this summary of the Mea Culpa plot and Mea Culpa ending explained, for the new Tyler Perry Netflix movie.
With Mea Culpa, Tyler Perry is back at it again with yet another low-brow thriller for Netflix. The new erotic legal drama, which began streaming today, stars Kelly Rowland as Mea Harper, a criminal defense attorney who must defend her new client, Zyair Malloy (Moonlight star Trevante Rhodes) against murder charges. Zyair is an artist who’s been accused of murdering his girlfriend. But he totally didn’t do it! …Right? Rowland—who also produced the movie—is about to find out.
This isn’t the first time Perry has veered from his comedy roots to helm a drama for Netflix. He also wrote and directed the 2020 thriller A Fall From Grace, starring Bresha Webb, and the 2022 romance, A Jazzman’s Blues. But Mea Culpa is perhaps his most non-sensical serious film to date. While it’s a pleasure to see Rowland and Rhodes on screen together, the script leaves a lot to be desired. It’s hard to call this film a legal drama when most of the details of the legal case don’t make any sense!
If you got lost along the way while watching Mea Culpa, I don’t blame you. Lucky for you, Decider is here to help. Read on for a breakdown of the Mea Culpa movie plot and the Mea Culpa movie ending explained.
The phrase “mea culpa” literally means “through my fault” in Latin, and it’s a fancy way of saying “My bad!” or “That’s on me!” In legal terms, “mea culpa” can mean a confession of guilt; you’re saying that you’re the one to blame.
Mea (Kelly Rowland) is a big-time criminal defense attorney in Chicago who decides to take on a high-profile case: A successful artist, Zyair (Trevante Rhodes), accused of murdering his girlfriend. Why does Mea take on the case? Well, in part, it’s to spite her husband, her brother-in-law, and her mother-in-law. Mea and her husband Kal (Sean Sagar) are having marital problems. Kal’s mother Azalia (Kerry O’Malley) has cancer, which means she’s dominating Kal’s time and treating Mea terribly, and Mea can’t say a word about it. And Kal’s brother, Ray (Nick Sagar), is working on the prosecution case. He’s also running for mayor. He’s a busy guy!
Kal, Azalia, and Ray all forbid Mea from taking on Zyair’s case. So, of course, she decides to take it. But things don’t look good for Zyair. His girlfriend, a Mexican girl named Hydie, disappeared. Her DNA, a lot of blood, and skull fragments were found in Zyair’s apartment. There’s even a video of Hydie, distressed, claiming that Zyair is trying to kill her.
