Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 141 minutes
Release Date: December 25th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Warner Bros.
Director(s): Blitz Bazawule
Writer(s): Marcus Gardley / Marsha Norman (stage play) / Alice Walker (novel)

Cause I ain’t you, I guess.

I really liked the final 25-30 minutes of the new cinematic musical iteration of The Color Purple. I think it handles the themes of forgiveness and generational trauma much better than Steven Spielberg’s adaptation and drives home the emotional weight of what Celie’s happily-ever-after truly means in context with the horrors she endured the four decades prior.

The first-two hours, though? A freight train of a Cliff’s Notes cram session that seems to slap you in the face to look somewhere else whenever a dramatic moment implores you to take a pause. Marcus Gardley’s script simply doesn’t have time for introspection. Maybe I shouldn’t have watched the 1984 version the day before because having its pace and care in my memory made the speed at which this one travels untenable.

I wasn’t therefore surprised to read this isn’t actually a strict translation of the stage musical. So much so that it credits that Tony Award-winning production after Alice Walker’s original novel as another source of inspiration rather than a part of the screenplay itself. Removing thirteen songs and reworking the narrative will do that. I only wonder then how much better Marsha Norman’s Broadway book is and whether it gives the subject matter the room it needs to breathe.

Even so, Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks are great reprising their roles. The pacing might refuse to give them their moment to shine and emote before cutting to the next scene, but their impact is definitely felt nonetheless. Colman Domingo and Corey Hawkins are really good too with Taraji P. Henson doing her best to elevate a crucial role that’s sadly been reduced to little more than “muse” and “ride out of Dodge.”

So, while director Blitz Bazawule gives the production a welcome kinetic style, it comes at the detriment of the whole. The finished result remains solid enough to be a worthwhile experience, but I’d probably spend the money to see a touring production of the original musical at my local theater before watching it again.

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(L-r) Taraji P. Henson as Shug Avery, Fantasia Barrino as Celie and Danielle Brooks as Sophia in Warner Bros. Pictures’ bold new take on a classic, THE COLOR PURPLE, a Warner Bros. Pictures release.