Wednesday, August 7, 2024

The Color Purple (2023)

IMDb plot summary: A woman faces many hardships in her life, but ultimately finds extraordinary strength and hope in the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.
Directed by Blitz Bazawule. Starring Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, and Marsha Norman.

The Color Purple is based on the musical adaptation of Alice Walker's book, although I suspect most people are familiar with it through the Steven Spielberg movie. The story follows a poor, plain Black woman named Celie whose father marries her off to a rich abuser, and it follows her journey as she learns how to stand up for herself and seek out what she wants out of life. It's rare for me to say this about a musical, but I'm not sure the songs added much of anything to this story, aside from "I'm Here" and the finale, which do feel like emotional capstones on top of the full story. The performances, however, are good. Fantasia Barrino played this part on Broadway when it first debuted, and she returns to the role here, bringing a lot of warmth to Celie, and Taraji P. Henson is nicely charismatic as the successful Shug Avery. And while the songs don't contribute anything exciting to the story, they mostly don't take away from it either. Not a tremendous success, but pretty good.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Color Purple > Le voyage au Greenland
The Color Purple < Safe
The Color Purple > The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
The Color Purple < Batman Returns
The Color Purple > Loins of Punjab Presents
The Color Purple > The Pirate Movie
The Color Purple > Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
The Color Purple > Whisky Galore!
The Color Purple > Show Me Love
The Color Purple > Corrina, Corrina
The Color Purple < Time Bandits
Final spot: #1233 out of 3934 or 69%.

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