For Colored Girls

As a huge Ntozake Shange fan, I was not skeptical, but rather CURIOUS as to how her work would be translated on-screen, especially when I found out Tyler Perry was the director. I have nothing against Tyler Perry and actually find most of his movies pretty enjoyable, but they're definitely a bit cookie-cutter, stereotypical, and trite. That's why I give him kudos for this film, as it was certainly a pleasant departure from his previous work. I was pleased with his direction and the realistic portrayal of most of the characters in the film. (A couple were overdone, but I shall get to that in a moment.) There was definitely a slight fluidity issue, but nothing that overshadowed the overall success of the film. When I talk about fluidity, I mean the cohesion of scenes, but I definitely liked the way that Shange's actual poems were incorporated into the film. It didn't seemed forced or like Perry just stuck in the recitals because he knew they needed to fit in somewhere, but well thought-out and fitting with the dialogue.

The cast was pretty strong over-all. Kimberly Elise, by far, led the pack with her amazing skill. Every time she graced the screen, the emotion and sorrow in her eyes pierced through my heart. She was absolutely PHENOMENAL and I expect her to be well recognized come award season. Thandie Newton was GORGEOUS as always, and did great, but seemed slightly overdone at times, especially when she tried to speak ebonics. (But that is expected, as she has a natural foreign accent.) I've noticed a lot of people criticize Kerry Washington's character as "overdone," but I really liked Kerry in this film and believed her completely. Anika Noni Rose, Tessa Thompson, and especially Phylicia Rashad also stood out to me, though they had some of the lesser roles. All three did wonderfully with what they were given. Janet Jackson...eh. I don't know what it is about her, but I have never been impressed with her acting. I don't know if she's not digging enough or if screen just isn't her forte, but she never feels believable to me and I feel uncomfortable watching her. I would definitely call her the weakness in the film.

A controversial topic regarding this movie is its "theme" (many label it a Sisters movie) and the message it portrays. A male friend of mine who was dragged along to see this movie with his cousin found it highly offensive to black men. I'm not going to lie---it certainly does label black men as "douches." All black men, with the exception of Kerry Washington's husband in the film, are portrayed as either emotionally, verbally, sexually, or physically abusive, selfish, and heartless---which as we all know is NOT true in real-life. There are plenty of great black men in this world that are educated, good providers, loving, respectful, honest, and that know how to treat women like princesses. I don't think was a man-bashing movie, but more-so a film that highlights many issues women experience that come hand-in-hand with broken families, absent fathers, violent men, rape/sexual abuse. I would recommend this to not just all black women, but to women of all races, as we ALL know someone---whether it be ourselves, our moms, our daughter, our sisters, our aunts, our cousins, our friends---who can relate to the struggles shown For Colored Girls.

I had very little background on this film before I saw it. Perhaps had I seen the play or read more about the concept of the work, my opinion would be better or worse. But as it stands, I enjoyed it...at least to the point you can enjoy such a heavy piece of work. I left the theater feeling I did when I saw "Precious": glad I saw the film, recognizing it was a special piece of work, but ambivalent about the over-the-top darkness that resonated in the film. Both films try to take you to a place you've never seen on film, a place you didn't even think film would go ie murdered kids and graphic tales of molestation.

The strong: SUPERB acting, from most involved. Rashad, Elise, Devine, and Rose brought Oscar-worthy performances. Perry will get props here for choosing a wonderfully-talented cast to pull off a challenging piece of art. Thandie Newton and Kerry Washingtong both did respectable jobs as did Whoopi Goldberg and the younger cast member whose name escapes me. Another strong element was the concept. I don't know if it was pulled off to a tee, which I will mention later, but I found the poems brilliantly written and delivered and the concept of documenting intertwining lives interesting.

The weak: The exception to the superb acting cast would be Janet Jackson. Once again, Perry tries to force her to be better than she is, and once again, he/she comes up short. As another commenter stated, she just doesn't have it. I will give her props on finding a way to garner up the tears on cue when going through her poem lines, but as a whole, she is stiff and unmoving as an actress. But she does wear her color (I guess they all have colors or something?) red well. Maybe that's why she was chosen for the role? Who knows except Perry why he continues to go that same well for his films. I digress there though.

Another glaring weakness of the film is that once again Perry's lack of good instinct as a director is evident. WHY for the love of all things holy did he have the cast recite ALL THE LINES OF THE POEMS? Did he not watch the film in the edit room and see that the poems were too long-drawn out for a film and could easily be too much for the audience? Where are his instincts? Even movie-watching instincts. It seems he should have recognized that the script needed major tweaking. It's troubling that even now, after all his success in his many films, he still has not captured more sophistication as a director. The film could have easily been sliced down by at least 30 minutes and been just as effective--actually moreso--than it was.

I do not know if this is a weakness of the film or if the original play was written for just this effect, but it is obvious that the author hated men. Virtually all the men were portrayed not just as mean or insensitive, but as devils. And there was no subtlety. The blatancy of the double standard was rather insulting and off-putting. But again, perhaps that is where the author meant to go with the piece.

In sum, while there were major areas that could have been improved, I have to call foul on some of the critics' assault of this film, and their proclivity to compare it to other--admittedly weak--Tyler Perry works. Though Perry's fingerprints are all over this film, including the garden variety Madea-esquire funny lines from the resident overweight character to the stoicism of the well-to-do professional with the troubled marriage (Jackson's character is practically a mirror image of her character in other Perry films), I do think this film is of better quit than most of his offerings, and he should be given credit for elevating his game a little bit. Perry knows his audience well and though it can be argued that he sometimes seems to "dumb down" for laughs or whatever, he has to be given credit for being loyal to his fans. Time and time again, he gives them what they expect--a safe thing to do yes, but an amazing show of loyalty nonetheless. This film should not have a score as low as the 3.6 it has right now. The great acting alone carries it to at least the mid-way mark. Though I want to give it a 6.5 and could thus go for a 6 or 7 on the IMDb scale, I am going to up-rate it to counter what I believe is unfairly low number at the current moment.

I will start by saying that I am not a Tyler Perry fan. I don't generally watch or enjoy his movies. I was also hesitant to see this play turned into a movie, but my husband really wanted to see it, so I went somewhat reluctantly to see how TP would butcher this play.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. First of all, the play is not something that can be easily rendered into a movie. It's more of a performance than a traditional "play". There is not a coherent plot, and even the vignettes are often incomplete stories. The men that are central actors in the womens' stories are completely voiceless and have no role in the play whatsoever. The dialog from the different characters is beautiful and elegant and haunting, so to be true to the story you have to keep the language that is used.

So, it's a difficult situation to be in, no plot really to paraphrase or "adapt" with very precise language that needs to be incorporated to keep the beauty of the piece. It is a task that a better filmmaker than TP should have tackled....but it's doubtful that anyone who had the talent AND the juice to make this movie actually would have, so TP is all that's left.

The film is choppy at parts...NOT seamlessly interweaving the added plot-driven dialog with the elegant and colorful soliloquies from the original play. Also, some of the particular poems seem oddly-placed, and out of context.

However, the performance of the pieces did give a meaning that reading the play does not. Pieces that I understood in one way when I read them took on a different and more potent meaning when I saw them being performed in the context of the film. The delivery of most (not all) of the poems and the character portrayals generally was excellent.

There is some overacting (Kerry Washington in particular stood out as overdone to me), and some of Tyler Perry's typical caricatures (if you are a light-skinned man with a high paying job....you are a bastard!), but if I evaluated this movie based on whether my understanding and experience of the text was expanded by this film, I would say it was.

Perhaps if I had seen the performance I would evaluate this film less kindly, but I think that if you come in understanding 1) it is a lofty performance piece being rendered as film, and 2) it has incorporated some of the performance aspect of the play into the film, I think you could appreciate it and enjoy it.

This is very much a piece of art. Determining the value of a piece of art is very personal. This movie may speak to some and may bore others to death. This movie needed editing, probably shaving a good 30 minutes off wouldn't have hurt. It has some very powerful scenes and is definitely not a movie to see because you want to just relax and laugh.

That being said, I am very disappointed that one poster decided to comment not about the movie but about their own personal prejudices about black women, and probably black people in general. I'd like to point out, that NOT ONE woman in this film was on welfare. NOT ONE woman in this movie was living off "the tax payers" and NOT ONE woman in this film was living on easy street. If you just want to rant about your own personal prejudices then go to one of the political blogs. This is supposed to be an honest discussion about the movie.

For Colored Girls (2010)

An artful, gutsy, moving experience.

You could easily see this movie and say that it's overly artful, overtly gutsy, and an overwhelmingly moving experience. You would have to like this kind of high drama to get into this at all. Very high drama. I do, and so I loved this movie.

If you've seen "Crash" you know how this movie is put together--a series of high powered characters in tough situations are followed separately in an interwoven and increasingly connected urban universe. This is a work about women, African-American women, and about their ultimately horrible plight in a world of greed, horror, and men, who don't come off very well. So they turn increasingly inward, and to each other, to survive.

Director Tyler Perry has great material here--the Ntozake Shange play that wowed Broadway in 1975. One of the strengths here is one of the things people find irritating--the characters speak at times in long lines of poetic monologue. It isn't realistic, but it's beautiful, and in fact it really is poetry, and is part of the overall style. This helps form the overall aura of the movie, as well, of highbrow seriousness in a gutsy, often low income narrative. The story gets tweaked for 2010, though some of the themes don't make sense for our times, most glaring the backstreet abortion.

The acting is fabulous, and uniformly so. Everyone is able to really pour it on, which is difficult when they are sometimes speaking through actual poetry. And so through all the tears comes a realization that this very artificially outrageous drama has deeply deeply serious intentions.

If you like movies for how they are made--the editing, the filming, the set design--you'll be impressed. It's highly artful in a Hollywood, expensive way, an uncompromised production. Of course, as a viewer, you have to like that, especially when it gets artsy, as when a mother and daughter speak in two simultaneous monologues and the camera, and the sound, film back and forth between them, while still delicately keeping both threads continuous and palpable throughout. And the moment has huge symbolism, too, because it's about how they never understand each other, even when they pretend to try.

If there's a large problem here, it's in the endless excess. There is more tragedy, and more emotional crisis, than you can handle in a movie. I think it starts to be a parody of itself, and toward the end you are just ready for a catharsis. The choreographed ending is a little predictable and breezy, too, though even here, when the women gather on the roof, there is still a complex, interwove poetic power.

Forget the cynics and the impatient, if you can, that have slammed this film. It's not a typical Tyler Perry movie at all. It's a smart, beautiful film, and in some ways a great film.