There's a smart, hip, perhaps even necessary film to be made about a sophisticated African American coming out to his small-town Georgia family, but "Dirty Laundry" isn't it. Overwritten and under-directed by Maurice Jamal, the movie contains several honest moments but remains too awash in clichés and stereotypes to take seriously.

As Sheldon, a snooty writer who returns to his Southern roots after living large in New York for the past decade, Rockmond Dunbar (TV's "Soul Food," "Prison Break") never finds a way past his unsympathetic role and into our good graces. The normally engaging Loretta Devine as his mother, Evelyn, an ornery, tippling laundress coming to terms with her gay son as well as her hard-knock life, is also undermined by the unfocused script. Despite her obvious commitment, the actress is as uneven as her material.

Jamal, who also plays Sheldon's resentful brother, packs this overlong dramedy with too many broadly drawn characters (the hateful Aunt Lettuce is especially egregious), needless segues and side stories, and a raft of weakly developed conflicts. The revelation that Sheldon has a 10-year-old son (from a once-only assignation he's conveniently forgotten) propels much of the action, but it's remarkably unconvincing. The same goes for Sheldon's romance with Ryan (Joey Costello), who makes "Will & Grace's" Jack McFarland look like Clint Eastwood. As an openly gay filmmaker, Jamal should have known better.

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