The Color Purple reviews

[Big Magilla]

It's pure speculation.

[Sonic Youth]

LOL.

The day after Obama published his list of the year's ten best films, he issued a statement that he had just seen The Color Purple and loved it, saying he was adding it to his list. The internet went wild, saying that five minutes after he published the list, he got a call from Oprah.

How could anyone know this?

And why is it such a bad thing (although five minutes is a bit over-zealous)?

[Big Magilla]

LOL.

The day after Obama published his list of the year's ten best films, he issued a statement that he had just seen The Color Purple and loved it, saying he was adding it to his list. The internet went wild, saying that five minutes after he published the list, he got a call from Oprah.

[OscarGuy]

You're in luck. He's in next year's The American Society of Magical Negroes.

[Sabin]

I spent a lot of this movie asking myself how I would have reacted to it if it wasn't weirdly directed, broadly acted, and poorly shot (Dan Laustsen shot this?!?). Even still, I'd have to contend with songs I didn't love and staging that I didn't like. The best I can say for it is that (squinting) I can see the emotional experience underneath all that. Like, after a year of saying "A Color Purple Musical?" I get why. I really do. The audience I was with loved it and I wouldn't want to take that enjoyment from them. I didn't share that enjoyment for reasons I've stated, but also I just don't think the film does a great job with Celie's arc. With this lighter touch, I never felt her growing and changing, and developments just come from nowhere. I honestly didn't know her in this version. I don't want to leap to blame Fantasia Barrino -- the script and the directing weren't there -- but she didn't overcome those challenges.

My vote for MVP is Colman Domingo. He seems the most in the movie. It's not a great performance but I think the film gains the most from his commitment, and he's not afraid to play Mister as a pathetic, flawed monster.

Both Brooks and Henson were good IMO. Danielle Brooks has a fun number early on, a sympathetic arc, and a moving emotional outburst late in the film that the audience loved (the film's best scene) but I thought the film benefited from Henson's chops. I could see both getting nominated. I could also see neither. Um, we're in a post-Jamie Lee Curtis-just-won-for-Everything Everywhere All At Once era so what do I know? I think they're both helped by how weak Best Supporting Actress is this year.

I don't want to shit on this thing. I hope it's successful because I'd like more movie musicals. Just not necessarily this one.

Also, I don't know the last time I saw David Alan Grier but so nice to see him! More of DAG please!

[Sabin]

Just realized... WB has both Aquaman and the Color Purple basically opening the same weekend. They also opened Wonka last weekend. Basically Warner Bros has three $100m movies opening within the same week and a half. How did that happen? Time to merge with Paramount.

[dws1982]

The Color Purple is one of the few Spielberg movies that I think he might have made better if he had made it twenty or so years later. I've never bought the idea (which you thankfully also don't hear a ton anymore) that Spielberg was a man-child who only became a "mature" filmmaker around the time of Schindler's List, but The Color Purple was clearly a movie and subject he, who had spent the previous decade doing films that were much more action-focused, wasn't quite ready for. And as Tee says, it doesn't ring true.

Can't say I'm looking forward to this film of the musical, partially because, even though it was so so long ago, Fantasia Barrino was one of my least favorite American Idol winners back when I was watching.

[danfrank]

The Debruge review in Variety is one of those "you weren't there, and you totally misrepresent what happened" things that bug those of us old enough to have experienced something in real time. His first paragraph suggests that the only problem people had with the 1985 film was that Spielberg, not being black, had no right to tell this story (although, Debruge also implies, he did it wonderfully). That'd be a 2023 reaction. In real-time, the problem people had with the film was that it felt Disney-fied; didn't remotely ring true. (There were obviously critics -- especially TV-based ones -- better disposed toward the film, but highbrow circles were definitively negative.

I had the same thought when I read that review this morning. Pretty much only middlebrow critics and viewers loved it (though as with any Spielberg film there are certain elements to admire). I was fairly mortified when I saw it, as I imagined anyone who had read the book would also be. The tone was just so incredibly off, as exemplified by that corny scene where Shug and the other “sinners” go marching to church singing that gospel song. I was relieved when it was shut out at the Oscars.

[Mister Tee]

It feels like this has already been and gone, but, no, it hasn't opened yet, and some of these reviews --especially the two top trades -- are better than (I, at least) anticipated.

The Debruge review in Variety is one of those "you weren't there, and you totally misrepresent what happened" things that bug those of us old enough to have experienced something in real time. His first paragraph suggests that the only problem people had with the 1985 film was that Spielberg, not being black, had no right to tell this story (although, Debruge also implies, he did it wonderfully). That'd be a 2023 reaction. In real-time, the problem people had with the film was that it felt Disney-fied; didn't remotely ring true. (There were obviously critics -- especially TV-based ones -- better disposed toward the film, but highbrow circles were definitively negative.)

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-co ... c-reviews/

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235760721/

https://variety.com/2023/film/reviews/t ... 235790019/