Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi) and Nettie (Halle Bailey) are inseparable young sisters, even more so after the passing of their mother, but their lives are turned upside down when their father, Alfonso (Deon Cole) arranges for Celie to marry Mister (Colman Domingo).  Years pass, and the sisters fall out of touch, and though Celie (Fantasia Barrino) has been a dutiful wife to her crude husband, he still has eyes for Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson), a beautiful singer from Memphis.  Still, Celie begins to carve out a life of her own, refusing to live forever under the abuse of Mister. 

Blitz Bazawule directs The Color Purple from a Marcus Gardley adaptation of the Marsha Norman musical, itself an adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel.  Coming in at 141 minutes, the Warner Brothers musical features a great score by Kris Bowers as it tells the odyssey of a young African American woman across the early 1900s in the South.  Despite forgoing a robust festival rollout, the film instead opened wide on Christmas Day, and has since been welcomed by many regional critic’s circles with accolades for the ensemble cast as well as audiences who contributed to an $18M opening day haul at the Domestic Box Office. 

Walker’s novel was first adapted in 1985 by Steven Spielberg, himself a producer on this version along with Oprah Winfrey and in a cameo appearance Whoopi Goldberg, both alums of his take.  Bazawule delivers a much more tonally coherent film than Spielberg, and while both films feature some really harrowing scenes, Bazawule does not quickly retreat to some awe-shucks slapstick but rather lets the drama play out and brings the more lighthearted elements in the dialogue instead of as a scene capper.  It is still a very difficult story to translate to film, especially in musical form, because it is such an enduring crucible for Celie and these horrific moments are often interrupted and transitioned by big song and dance numbers.  While this pattern may work better on the stage when the set design and the lighting can be more evocative and surreal as it happens in real-time in front of a live audience, The Color Purple as seen here on screen ever so slightly misses the mark. 

Part of this reason is because it seems a little unsure of how much of its runtime wants to be occupied by music.  Oftentimes, the less music in a musical is better, especially on film, but here they have trimmed the songs so much that they feel like excerpts or reprises in their short length even though it is the first time we are hearing these themes.  It makes the songs feel like an afterthought and all it takes to deflate a musical is just the slightest bit of hesitation.  Further, the dancing leaves much to be desired.  While it is not as haptic as the moves seen on TikTok, it still has an overwhelming ragdoll quality to it that is uncomfortable to watch.  That being said, Dan Laustsen’s camera stays pretty well focused on whoever is driving the song so they have nowhere to hide their choreography and the film avoids the distracting disembodiment of voices that often comes with a heavy use of ADR. 

For a story that spans decades, the film often feels a little lost in time.  The bookending sequences, when Mpasi and Bailey fill the leading roles and the final 20 minutes or so when Carol Rasheed’s makeup team really leans into aging Barrino, do help anchor us in time, but safe for a few year markings across the runtime it is hard to gauge just how much time has passed or what era we are currently in.  Larry Dias’ set decoration, while lush and lived in, does not lend itself to specificity but rather helps to mark the feel of the film. In addition, both girls really help set the tone of the film and the expectations of a story that will be painful to watch at times, but that they will remain undeterred and fortified in spirit.  It is a story about courage and sisterhood, and the two actresses really excel in bridging the gap between the rough elements of real life and the more magical elements of the song and dance numbers that get folded into their imagination and dreams. 

Once grown, the film is led by Barrino and the story takes on an understandably more mature feel as it begins to stabilize and take shape.  She does well in the role, but as the conduit for which the story flows through, she is often outshined by her supporting cast; though much of this is also in line with her character and that she remains such a force even when pushed to the edge of the frame is a testament to her strong and singular performance.  While the film is not shot entirely through Celie’s point of view, it is undeniably her account so that helps keep her in the conversations with Shug, Harpo (Corey Hawkins), one of Mister’s kids whom Celie helped raise, and Sophia (Danielle Brooks), Harpo’s bombastic first wife who all have much more to build a character on than Celie does.  A lead role so saturated in trauma is difficult to pull off, not only because the performance needs to be metered enough that it does not topple into the territory of melodrama, but because it is narratively one note.  It requires a strong supporting ensemble to bring energy to the story, and here Brooks is the runaway star of the show, but that is not to discredit the work of Hawkins or Henson, and to another extent, Domingo’s work, too.  Unfortunately, Domingo’s final act gets cut short and so his change of heart feels incredibly sudden right when his role was beginning to get fleshed out. 

That fast on the track pacing is something that ultimately affects the majority of the characters.  It is a remanent of its staged roots where the physical resetting of the stage in front of us helps convey the passing of time far more than a simple cut from the camera does, so the result on screen feels very rushed which is a shame because the film is at its best as a drama.  As such, it does feel a little strange with how quickly Sophia divorces Harpo after she brings it up in only the prior scene, or how Celie and Shug’s relationship grows so quickly and immediately.  In Shug’s first visit back with Mister which occupies much of the middle act laying the groundwork for the adult characters, the pacing again makes it hard to tell just how much time has passed; parts feel like this is just a weekend stop-by, other parts make it feel like a much longer stay. What makes it all work, though, is that the performers believe in their actions, and because the actors commit to the roles and the decisions of their characters audiences are able to move right along with them and accept their hasty judgment. 

The Color Purple is a bold and ambitious step forward in the growing career of a creative mind who has already directed a feature-length visual album for Beyonce. Bazawule works in a fearless way which gives his adaptation a distinct identity, but there is still a naïveté in his construction that a more tenured director may have done differently. One of the glaring examples besides the pacing is just how dark the film is, especially in the interiors, and while this film shakes off the storybook sentimentality that Spielberg’s had, it is an overcorrection that ends up putting a visual wall between the story and its audience. These choices aside, The Color Purple is still a lively time at the cinema that is filled with heart, and while it deals with some very dark and upsetting topics, it also revels in joy and the love shown between the characters across this decades-spanning narrative is infectious.