Film Review: The Color Purple

Rising like the sun in Hollywood are countless adaptations of classic works. This is not a new phenomenon, and while many of them seem destined to fall by the wayside, the new adaptation of The Color Purple directed by Blitz Bazawule is not one of them. The Color Purple brings the classic story to the screen again, this time as a full blooded musical adaptation of the Tony winning Broadway show. I have a particularly fond experience with that stage version The Color Purple, as it is one of the last musicals me and both of my parents went to Broadway to see, and my mom had seen it on Broadway with Fantasia as Celie nearly a decade prior. Being excited to see this movie would have been an understatement.

The movie tells the story of the life of Celie. As a young girl, she’s sexually and verbally abused by her father, bearing two children who are taken from her. Her only light is her sister Nettie, with whom she’s able to be her full self with. A man named Mister tries to get at Nettie, but their father promises Celie to him in marriage. Her life doesn’t get much better as he continues the cycle of abuse and ultimately drives Nettie away. As the years go by, she stays whittled down until two women in particular come into her life, Sophia, the brash and feisty partner of Harpo, Mister’s son, and Shug Avery, Mister’s “one that got away.” As Celie continues on, she’s able to find her voice and fight and take control of her life in the best way she knows how.

Blitz Bazawule’s direction in this movie is something of a revelation in that he embraced the totality of what a musical could be. Here he gives us visual spectacle and panache, making the numbers sing with the camera and editorial choices that let us appreciate the full body choreography and the story at the same time. He never lets one element rise above the other when it comes to guiding us through the story, making it a pleasant ride even as we’re wading through some really dark moments.

He also directs and is given some delightful performances, chief among them the supporting turns from Taraji P. Henson as Shug Avery and Danielle Brooks as Sophia. Both women represent different aspirational figures and friends for Celie and do marvelous jobs with their big songs. Both women manage to do the toughest thing in a musical like this, both standout but also fully support the journey of the main character. Henson even has the added weight of singing a song from the musical and some numbers The women may make the story, but Colman Domingo and Corey Hawkins in particular sketch a wonderful analysis of toxic masculinity and the generational effects that pain can have in a wonderful way.

What I found a bit challenging in this work is that there’s a push and pull in the way the story is being told, as if you can see the adaptation negotiations in the script. For every really smart idea such as giving us musical numbers for Celie’s imagination and making her internal thoughts more visually present, there’s the cutting of several songs or moments from the stage production that slow down the momentum of several of the character arcs. Losing the direct address is definitely a worthwhile change, but as the movie really moves into it’s back half, we lose a bit of Celie’s personality. Whether it’s Fantasia performance or the staging, many of the most powerful songs feel a bit muted, even as they’re sung beautifully. It felt like we were just hopping around the story of Celie rather than the performance or script really guiding us through her arc in a wholly satisfying way. The movie, while dealing with many a challenging subject, gets a level of studio sheen, especially when it comes to the relationship between Celie and Shug Avery, who fall victim the most to the cut numbers.

There’s nothing about these changes that make The Color Purple a bad retelling (far from it) as the stage and screen are different mediums, but it is certainly something that made me cognizant of what is being presented here. Whether that is something that will wear on or register for general audiences remains to be seen but if you have a familiarity with the stage show, these are thoughts that will likely cross your mind. The Color Purple is certainly going to find its audience and represent what can be done when there’s a concerted effort to bring talented people together to make a good movie.