My wife and I saw the remake of the movie The Color Purple on December 26. It opened on Christmas Day and is likely the earliest I’ve ever seen a film in its theatrical run.
Two things ran through my head afterward. While I had seen the original 1985 version in the cinema – nominated for 11 Oscars and winning exactly none – a factoid I did not need to look up – I have a difficult time recalling more than a feeling of mostly despair. The director of that film, Steven Spielberg, is an executive producer of the new one.
I get what Taraji P. Henson said about the earlier take. “’The first movie missed culturally. We don’t wallow in the muck. We don’t stay stuck in our traumas. We laugh, we sing, we go to church, we dance, we celebrate, we fight for joy, we find joy, we keep it. That’s all we have.’”
Black joy doesn’t seem to dominate the media narrative. When I watched Making Black Grapevine, as I described here, I realized how much it’s often missing.
Promotion
Conversely, the movie was so hyped I was nervous. A star of the film appeared every day on CBS Mornings the week before the film opened, plus Oprah Winfrey, an executive producer of this iteration and a star of the 1985 take. My wife assumed it was a Paramount film (CBS is a Paramount Global company.) But no.
I assume it was because Gayle King, the longest-tenured of the hosts, is BFF with Oprah. To be sure, I got some insights. Henson was nervous about singing in the film, and Fantasia Barrino, who was in the Broadway musical in 2007, was worried about acting in her first film. I never saw the musical.
Wikipedia: “BroadwayWorld revealed that the film will not be a direct copy-and-paste adaptation of the stage musical, with elements from the novel and the 1985 film also being featured, including ‘Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister),’ the song sung by the character of Shug Avery in the 1985 film. 13 songs from the musical were cut from the film… while a song cut from the stage production, titled ‘She Be Mine,’ was reinstated for this film.”
Ah, the film
We liked the movie. It looks good, and most of the songs were compelling. The balance of music to narrative seemed reasonable. The acting and singing by Barrino as Celie, Henson as Shug Avery, and Danielle Brooks as Sofia were fine. The rest of the cast was strong, including Corey Hawkins, H.E.R., Halle Bailey, and David Alan Grier. Colman Domingo, who stars as the heroic pacifist Bayard Rustin in the Netflix film Rustin, is the brutal Albert “Mister” Johnson here.
The reviews were 87% positive with the critics and 95% in Rotten Tomatoes. One of the negative reviews was from Lisa Johnson Mandell of AtHomeInHollywood.com. “Just in time for Christmas – a jaunty movie musical about incest, rape and abuse. The musical numbers are gorgeous, but confusing and tone-deaf. They trivialize the gravity of truly unconscionable crimes and the people who commit them.”
This is an interesting concern. If the 1985 film was too dour, is the 2023 reimagining too… celebratory? As a couple of critics opined, is the 1982 book by Alice Walker unfilmable?
Or is the power of forgiveness for even these atrocities stronger than despair? I saw an interview on CBS News an interview of an Israeli man whose parents were murdered on October 7 who was seeking peace, not vengeance. The capacity for grace cannot be overestimated. So, I’m willing to accept the “happy ending” here.