“The Color Purple” (2023) is a film adaptation of the Tony award winning Broadway/world touring 2005 musical, which in turn was based on Alice Walker’s novel of the same name. Starting in 1909, a pair of inseparable, motherless, young teenage sisters, Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi in her powerful onscreen acting debut) and Nettie (“The Little Mermaid” Halle Bailey) try to survive living in rural Georgia. Their abusive father, Alfonso (an unrecognizable “Blackish” Deon Cole), marries Celie off to Mister (Colman Domingo, who is incapable of giving anything less than a perfect performance), aka Albert Johnson, who pines after Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson) and treats Celie like a mule. After Nettie rejects Mister’s advances, Mister swears that Celie and Nettie will never see each other again. Somehow Celie (“American Idol” Fantasia Barrino, who reprises her role from the 2005 Broadway production) survives an unremitting, punishing, friendless life of drudgery until her stepson, Harpo (Corey Hawkins), marries the unstoppable Sofia (“Peacekeeper” Danielle Brooks, who reprises her role from the 2015 Broadway production) and Shug returns to town and teaches Celie how to fight back and restore her faith in God.
Fans of the first adaptation of Walker’s novel, which Steven Spielberg directed in 1985, should rest assured that the original stars have blessed this version. Whoopi Goldberg, whose second onscreen film appearance was as Celie in the 1985 film, makes a brief cameo appearance, and Oprah Winfrey, the original Sofia, acts behind the scenes as executive producer along with producers Spielberg, Walker and Walker’s daughter, Rebecca. Because the 1985 film and musical are direct adaptations of the novel, a comparison would be like choosing between apples and oranges. It is possible to have a preference, but competition is not required. If you are wondering why a musical is even necessary, a musical provides a way for audiences to hear Celie’s thoughts and see her resist based on the song’s tone before the end of the second act. Because “The Color Purple” is a musical, it adopts the musical visual language of each era that it takes place in. There is a dizzying array of Negro spiritual inspired, Busby Berkeley spectacle, swinging 20s, blues, Duke Ellington aesthetic to the production, which would not make sense in a drama. A drama aims for realism, whereas this version can also pay homage to classic cinema. The 1985 film revolves more around Celie’s journey whereas the 2023 version feels more like an ensemble cast with each character taking turns in the spotlight. Celie says, “Every woman is not the same,” and the film showcases how each woman resists differently to preserve her sense of self, including Celie, who appears to acquiesce.
The musical contrasts Celie’s joy and pain by highlighting how whenever Celie has an ounce of the prior, either her father or husband extinguish it, even as everyone else celebrates. The high points are very high and not concentrated in the denouement. Celie is like a Christ figure in “The Color Purple.” Others can be brave and free because Celie acts as a target for abusers, creates a homebase/sanctuary and provides hospitality. It also makes Celie’s predicament more infuriating because no one in her community explicitly intervenes to protect her, but only does so surreptitiously. “The Color Purple” depicts misogynoir as a different type of slavery. Without Celie, there is no community or family because it would fall into disrepair and complete dysfunction. Because Celie knows how to survive toxic environments and act as if she is servile, she can move more freely between her Black community and the white community to help Sofia when she has a run-in with the law.
Despite her assertion that she is a Tomboy, Nettie is a traditional, feminine woman who wants to be a schoolteacher, but rejects sex and the prison of heterosexual relationships, which makes sense considering that she had a front row seat to Celie’s subjugation. She explicitly fights if necessary, but has zero resources except her faith in herself. While Shug may seem like an adventurer, she has money and resources to make a home wherever she goes. Nettie’s faith in herself and her ability to survive is rooted in her intellect and innate self-worth. She claims sanctuary in Christian respectable values. While Bailey does an outstanding job, if there was a time machine that could transport a young Akosua Busia, who played Nettie in Spielberg’s film, to this production, and she could sing, I’d swap them.
Sofia is Celie’s opposite. While she is a heterosexual woman who adheres to some gender norms, she adopts behaviors that could be considered masculine by physically fighting, refusing monogamy, engaging in physical labor like construction, demanding that men take care of children and do housework, and finding strength in the numbers of her family. Brooks uses Oprah’s original performance as the foundation, but this version of “The Color Purple” makes it clear that every woman, including those who do not resemble Bailey’s body type, is a brick house. Like Shug, Sofia is a different type of diva, and it is clearly an honor to receive her attention. Ghanian director Blitz Bazawule knows that thick women are hot. Body positive rhetoric is unnecessary when the camera clearly loves Brooks, which sets the stage for Celie’s later transformation.
Shug is only a hard partier in this version and does not appear to be as initially sickly and cruel as the iconic Margaret Avery’s imnterpretation of Shug in the 1985 film. Henson is a renowned scene stealer, and she plays Shug as an ultra-feminine, sexually liberated performer with people, including men, circling her orbit as if it is a privilege to serve her. Henson’s Shug is constantly making an entrance and never has a bad day. Unlike Sofia and Celie, she faces no opposition except from her preacher daddy. She is like a preacher in the ways that she explicitly encourages Celie to enjoy life and restores her faith in God, not men. After the movie, I was surprised that Henson did not pull a “Singin’ in the Rain” and did her own vocals according to the credits, but if “The Color Purple” falls short, it is that no one has Tata Vega’s voice. If previews featuring “Push Da Button” made you think that Henson could beat Vega, it is not the same song version as in the film. The 1985 version of “Maybe God Is Tryin’ to Tell You Somethin’” is unbeatable. When Shug realizes the extent of Mister’s tyranny, she uses her charm to distract him and never directly opposes him. When Shug opposes him, she declares it like a sitting queen as if it was already done, but she also has a man in tow who is willing to escort her out of there. Henson is a queen on any day in any role.
Although “The Color Purple” opened on Christmas Day, it feels more like an Easter (Resurrection) Day story. The narrative’s trajectory is salvation and redemption. In the opening, Bazawule visually links Mister into Celie and Nettie’s story by having the camera facing down then swoops down to and behind Mister, whose face is not visible, but is riding a horse under the tree while playing his banjo before ascending to showing the sisters sitting on a tree. Mister’s purest form is music and dignity, which links him to Shug. Without women’s liberation/salvation, men are also enslaved to a life in exile from joy. The tree is symbolic of Eden or paradise, but this movie is set after the fall so anyone even remotely familiar with Walker’s story knows that it will be impossible for Mister, Celie and Nettie to occupy the same space for long until the end. The next song almost feels like a non sequitur because no main character sings in it, but First Lady (Tamara Mann), aka the Reverend’s wife, and the Reverend Avery (David Alan Grier), but it makes sense if the framing of the story is to reassure the audience that everyone will be alright in spite of all the tragic events about to follow. Shug’s titular speech is advanced to an earlier section of the film and distinguishes between the evil acts of man and God’s lack of immediate intervention. Unlike Spielberg’s film, there is no onscreen Christmas celebration, but it ends with Miss Celie’s Annual Easter Dinner and is held under the opening tree.
“The Color Purple” emphasizes the cycle of toxic masculinity and how it imprisons generations of Johnsons. Domingo is at Anthony Hopkins levels of acting excellence. In a matter of seconds, Domingo can cover the entire spectrum of emotions. Domingo plays charismatic bad men in “Fear the Walking Dead” and “Zola” so even though Mister is a hateful man, there are moments where Domingo shows glimpses of who he could be if he did not feel shackled to work the land, the Adam curse that predates Celie’s, and obey his father. This version fleshes out how Mister could adore Shug yet be so cruel to Celie. Bazawule, Hawkins, Domingo and Louis Gossett Jr. who plays Ol’ Mister coordinate a seamless continuum showing the stages, ranging from unredeemable to more functional men based on their relationship with women. As Harpo, Corey Hawkins, whose talents were insufficiently tapped in this summer’s “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” (2023), gets to sing and dance While the generational curse is gradually breaking, Mister’s road to redemption shows the seeds of dignity even as he hits rock bottom.
Try to see “The Color Purple” in the theater and on a big screen. Also if you can see it with a majority Black audience, do it!
