A decades-spanning tale of love and resilience and one woman’s journey to independence. Celie faces many hardships but ultimately finds extraordinary strength and hope in the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.
Director Blitz Bazawule has done a fine job recreating this cinematographic masterpiece, one bold piece at a time, based on Alice Walker’s 1982 Putlizer-Prize-Winning book and the 1985 studio production. When the film opens, the storyline begins to immediately unfold with Celie’s (Fantasia Barrino) second child by her own father being taken away and never to be seen again.
When one of Nettie’s (Halle Bailey) suitors asks her father for her hand in marriage, he offers Sophia (Danielle Brooks), a bigger woman with a louder mouth. As Celie and her sister Nettie try to bond between secret study sessions and sisterly love, Netti is forced to leave when Albert “Mister” Johnson (Colman Domingo) casts her out of his marital home into the night when she won’t let Mister have his way with her. This begins Nettie’s journey, where she ends up overseas tutoring Celie’s children, whom they both thought Mister had killed. After years of hiding letters that Nettie had sent to her sister, years of abuse, and constant attacks about not taking care of Mister’s own children, Celie is redeemed when Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson) comes to town, changes the entire town’s landscape with her music and straightens out every man’s attitude in listening distance, while developing a lifelong relationship with Celie which ends up with her taking Celie back to Memphis with her and later being united with her sister Nettie and her own two children whom Nettie (Ciara) had become a mother to when their step-mother had passed away.
In the end, “The Color Purple,” which displays some hard-held truths about our country’s dealing with racism, still finds a cloud under the Purple lining. Alice Walker’s movie and the original book, which debuted over 33 years ago, have proven to be “life-worthy.” Even though it is not based on a true story, it is based on the genuine emotions of relationships, healing, and redemption, and when all is said and done, “The Color Purple” still reigns as a test of time of wholesome, heartwarming, heartwrenching and victorious entertainment!
In Theaters Monday, December 25th
