The Color Purple 2023
It has been a long time since I saw The Color Purple, so I don't remember much about the story, though a few scenes have stayed with me. I didn't feel like I needed to see another verison of it, but this is based on a musical and has been getting some acclaim, so I decided to catch it at the theaters. I feel like this is a very different story, though some of the brutality and themes are definitely still there. However, it also seems like it lacks much of a story. Celie is the main character and we get to know her from a young age into old age through the course of the movie. Her life is mostly terrible and she is primarily a victim, so things happen to her more than having her develop. Despite her problems, she is nice to a few people that she likes and she has dreams of something better, which could be absolutely anything given where she is for most of her life. There are some other people who show up who also don't really develop much and the story takes place over a very extended period of time. So just when you think something might resolve itself, a title card tells us it is now 8 years later, and maybe now there will be some resolution? It's a very clumsy narrative. It is based on a musical, but really there are just a handful of songs, so it isn't like we are bouncing from one production number to another in lieu of being able to tell a more cohesive story. The music is good and the acting is also very good given the heavy material. I feel like the story lets it down and it also lets its characters down by putting them through the wringer for many decades rather than just a fairly short period of time (maybe that follows the book). Eventually there is a nice story, so it ends well, but even that is kind of dragged out. I am not that familiar with some of the cast (a number of pop stars) though of course I recognized Taraji Henson, Halle Bailey, and then Jon Batiste in a small role. Louis Gossett, Jr. is almost unrecognizable in another small role and Whoopi Goldberg has a cameo, which is a nice callback to the 1985 movie. So it is entertaining, though still very heavy, and then also disjointed.
Written: 29 Dec 2023