I don’t know for sure, but I’d venture to guess that most movies that start with a rapist whisking away a baby he fathered with his daughter don’t feature a lot of joyous singing. Most movies aren’t The Color Purple, a classic work that has been periodically refreshened and reincarnated from book to movie to musical to movie musical. It’ll wind up a hologram projection or whatever is next too, you watch.
Director Blitz Bazawule’s first feature-length narrative film, The Burial of Kojo, was a wild visual fairytale that I loved, loved, loved. It demanded its creator be given a big-budget chance to shine, and damned if the proof ain’t in the purple. Resoundingly, powerfully, gloriously, resplendently triumphant, the only knocks against it are the same issues that exist for any Broadway adaptation: Songs in musicals serve to tell things that can’t be shown on stage.
Bazawule and writer Marcus Gardley get that though. Almost every number is a cinematic spectacle that would be difficult if not impossible to pull off on stage. It helps that the original songs from Marsha Norman’s adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel mostly peer into the soul of vibrant, unique characters who often grapple with the meaning of life and the nature of God. If you listen to these on repeat, Spotify may well send you a quick “Everything OK” text along with your Wrapped year in review.
If you’re not familiar, the story starts in the early 1900s and follows Celie (Fantasia Barrino) as she overcomes a singularly awful set of circumstances. After the aforementioned incest, she is forced into marriage with an older man who goes by Mister (Colman Domingo) and separated from her sister. Mister’s son, Harpo (Corey Hawkins), marries the bad-ass Sofia (Danielle Brooks), whose “Hell No!” is both my favorite featured song and how I’d like to respond to the entirety of what 2024 has to offer. Celie’s friendship with Sofia ends when Harpo tries to beat his wife. Apparently, he did not hear her song.
Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson), the only character in the film who has clear reason to bust into song since she is a jazz singer, builds up and empowers Celie, who soon discovers that her sister is alive and living in Africa. Then Sofia is thrown in jail because Georgia used to do a lot more overt racism, Celie literally curses Mister for his cruelty, and things barrel towards an earned ending that is defiantly happy. “I’m Here,” the showstopper song, has at its core a simplistic message that somehow passes by so many of us.
What Celie goes through over the course of the film is singularly wicked and hopefully rarer by the day. But her resilience should put her character up there with any hero who ever journeyed Joseph Conrad’s way. It also helps that Barrino is legitimately phenomenal here. Actually acting while singing isn’t common. Most people cover up for one part with the other, but Barrino does both simultaneously in a way that very, very few have done before. It’s amazing how much her performance, and Bazawule’s film as a whole, takes a hold on you. I didn’t realize until I sat down to write this how much I really admire this one.
“I’m Here” is a common, flippant response offered at workplaces to “How are you doing?” The Color Purple makes that ordinary, throwaway thought into a testimonial. May no burdens be as extreme as Celie’s, but let everyone celebrate the achievement that is survival, that is having made it to another day, that is demanding a place for ourselves in this world.
Grade = A-
Other Critical Voices to Consider
Sarah Vincent at Cambridge Day says “The impeccable ensemble cast and director Blitz Bazawule, who directed Beyonce’s visual album Black Is King (2020), prove that lightning can strike twice with this inspiring, spirited musical rendition of Walker’s classic tale about womanhood and the Black experience in the early 1900s.”
Carla Renata at The Wrap says “no matter what you believe spiritually, your soul will soar and be lifted through the words and imagination of Alice Walker. Bring some tissue, you’re going to need more than a few.”
Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com says “It’s a feminist fable that’s inspiring in all ways possible. A very surprising triumph.”