Released in theaters at Christmas, The Color Purple is not a new take on Steven Spielberg’s 1985 drama. Rather, Blitz Bazawule’s film is an adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical also based on Alice Walker’s best-selling novel, with music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray and book by Marsha Norman.
The grim premise of Walker’s book may seem like an odd fit for the holiday season, but foregrounding the film’s celebratory musical aspect might have helped it stay longer in theaters. (The official description doesn’t even mention its genre.) The Color Purple received one Oscar nomination: Danielle Brooks for supporting actress in a role that Oprah Winfrey made famous in 1985. It’s now streaming on Max, along with the Spielberg film and a making-of documentary, featuring producer Winfrey.
The deal
In 1909 Georgia, 14-year-old Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi) is pregnant for the second time with the child of her father (Deon Cole). When he whisks the baby away to adoptive parents, Celie’s only solace is her beloved sister, Nettie (Halle Bailey). Nettie catches the eye of an older man, the well-off farmer Mister (Colman Domingo), but the girls’ father persuades him to marry Celie instead.
Celie embarks on a life of toil and abuse from her husband, whose unwanted advances force Nettie to flee, separating the sisters. Now an adult (played by Fantasia Barrino), Celie accepts her lot — until two strong women transform her life.
Firebrand Sofia (Brooks), the bride of Mister’s grown son (Corey Hawkins), teaches Celie that it’s possible to say “Hell No!” to domestic violence in a rousing number. Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson), the flirtatious blues singer whom Mister loves, brings joy and effervescent sensuality into Celie’s home, reawakening her long-dormant interest in love and sex. With these two women’s help, Celie takes tentative steps toward independence.
Will you like it?
The Color Purple is a modern fairy tale that turns the old patriarchal tropes on their heads while still affirming the power of fate and magic. Sisterly and maternal bonds overcome decades of separation, a love triangle is a means of empowerment (Celie falls in love with the woman who would normally be her rival), and Shug and Sofia play fairy godmothers, sprinkling stardust on this downtrodden Cinderella to unleash her inner beauty and confidence. By the end of the story, the evil, controlling male figures are either dead or repentant, leaving the women to preside over a found-family utopia.
It may not be the most realistic tale, but it’s great material for a musical. Bazawule, a Ghanaian filmmaker and musician who directed the acclaimed indie The Burial of Kojo and codirected Black Is King with Beyoncé, makes a solid choice to embrace the inherent anti-naturalism of the format. Even outside the song-and-dance numbers, time and space yield to poetic logic: A mirror becomes a portal to the past (where Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor appears as Celie’s late mother), and seasons change in one long pan of the camera from window to window.
While not all the songs are winners, the performances, staging and choreography give them the dizzy lift they need. Shug’s blues-joint number “Push Da Button” doesn’t spare a single innuendo. Watching Henson vamp in a glittery gown, we can see why Celie and everyone else is infatuated with Shug (though Shug’s own motivations aren’t so clear). For their big duet, “What About Love?,” Shug takes Celie to the movie house, where they step right into the action of a Busby Berkeley-style musical.
Barrino has a great voice and an open face that makes you root for Celie. But the character’s passivity can be frustrating; in this version, she doesn’t evolve organically so much as she just finds really cool friends. In depicting Celie’s initial horror at Sofia, who refuses to resign herself to being degraded, the story pokes at a resonant theme: how women collaborate in their own oppression. But one tuneful lecture from Sofia makes Celie’s prejudices melt away.
Domingo, a 2024 Oscar nominee for Rustin (see sidebar), gives such a slyly charismatic performance as Mister that he steals his scenes, making us perhaps a bit too eager to see this abuser redeemed. But Mister’s rascally attractiveness does help explain why Shug gives him the time of day.
The Color Purple delivers on the old-school Hollywood promise of an uplifting vacation from cruel realities without feeling Disneyfied. It doesn’t censor the story’s positive depiction of lesbian love or its indictment of racism, though the latter remains in the background until Sofia is jailed for refusing to defer to the white mayor’s wife.
While Shug and Sofia are the flashier parts, Celie’s stubborn endurance has its own power. When Barrino sings the showstopper “I’m Here,” we’re with her.
If you like this, try…
“Great Performances,” season 47, episode 9: Much Ado About Nothing (2019; check pbs.org and your local library): Oscar-nominated Brooks played Tasha on “Orange Is the New Black” (2013-2019; Netflix, rentable) and applied her fiery wit to the role of Shakespeare’s sparring lover Beatrice in this Public Theater production, which transports the classic rom-com to Georgia in an election year.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020; Netflix): If you liked watching Henson sing the blues in The Color Purple, check out Viola Davis’ powerhouse performance as the titular blues singer in this acclaimed adaptation of August Wilson’s play.
Rustin (2023; Netflix): Domingo is in the running for Best Actor for his performance as Bayard Rustin, a gay civil rights activist who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington.
This article appears in Feb 21-27, 2024.
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