There comes a moment in this handsome musical version of Alice Walker’s novel when Miss Celie (Fantasia Barrino), its downtrodden heroine, sharpens a razor and begins to shave her abusive husband, Mister (Colman Domingo).
When Steven Spielberg adapted the same novel in 1985, the sequence was a nail-biting homage to Hitchcockian tension. Will Celie, who has just learned the extent of Mister’s deceit, exact a violent revenge? Blitz Bazawule’s polished, professional film runs through the beats of Mister’s close shave without a jitter. It’s emblematic of a project that looks pretty and sounds fabulous without ever blazing up the screen.
Case in point: Fantasia Barrino brings credibility and smoky vocals to one of literature’s most put-upon characters; Whoopi Goldberg, who has a cameo early in this 2023 iteration, as a midwife, had the range and star quality to project a gleam of rebellion even at Celie’s lowest ebb. Here, conversely, Celie’s revolt feels sudden and jarring.
There has been much chatter concerning the quality of modern screen musicals, specifically the lack of hummable hits in Wonka and Mean Girls. The Color Purple, similarly, lifts lovely leitmotifs from spirituals, gospel and blues without producing anything that sounds like a showstopper. Tellingly, the best hook comes from Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister), a Quincy Jones song bequeathed from the 1985 film.
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The Spielberg film casts a long shadow over the stage musical, which too often feels like a retread of that film interrupted by songs. The musical number as narrative speed bump is a flaw that carries over to the big screen.
There’s plenty to admire, nonetheless. Bazawule, the director of Beyoncé’s Black Is King video, crafts impressive tableaux, including beach scenes that lovingly pay tribute to Julie Dash’s seminal Daughters of the Dust, and a strong sense of life before the Great Migration. Colman Domingo’s Mister is a convincingly charming brute; Taraji P Henson’s Shug is a shimmying force of nature; and there are endearing supporting performances from Danielle Brooks, Corey Hawkins and Her.
The chaste lesbian scenes that were criticised in 1985 are not much more explicit in 2024, but Shug and Celie do (at least) get three duets. Lavish costumes dazzle even if they telegraph a question that’s as old as Walker’s novel: why on earth would the impossibly glamorous Shug ever hook up with Mister?
The Color Purple opens in cinemas on Friday, January 26th
