It could only be a match made in Hollywood–on one side, the huge ego of Tyler Perry, whose every previous film starts with his name introducing the title, whose movies reek of fake sex and faux religion, who seems to pander to an African-American audience at its lowest common denominator on one side. And on the other, the impassioned voice for equality and fearless leadership demonstrated in poetry and prose by the fierce Ntozake Shange.
The result is a passionate, driving, painful, exciting film, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf.” It opens here today, its power extended by Perry’s strong direction. He has learned through the years, and has created a superior movie with a large, talented and excellent cast.
Shange, who lived in St. Louis in the late 1950s (when she was 8 to 12), wrote “For Colored Girls. . . .” in the 1970s as a diatribe and protest about the treatment of African-American women by the men of their race. In the play, which opened on Broadway in the mid-1970s and visited the old American Theatre downtown some years later, Shange uses all her verbal power on African-American men, and it isn’t pretty. The movie isn’t always pretty, either, but it’s always strong and loyal to its author. The play involved seven women, each identified by a color. Perry has added two women, and some dialogue, and while he is not the writer she is, his attitude and philosophy are true to her.
The cast is splendid, led by Phylicia Rashad (Gilda), Janet Jackson (Jo) and Kimberly Elise (Crystal, Jo’s assistant). Whoopi Goldberg (Alice) and Thandie Newton (Tangie) are mother and daughter. All of them offer strong, insightful interpretations of Shange’s always powerful writing.
There’s a savage rape scene, but Perry allows some of its impact to be lost by cross-cutting it with a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. Mostly, however, he does a first-rate job, aided by Aaron Zigman’s music, Ina Mayhew’s production design and some glorious cinematography by Alexander Groszynski.
Opens today at multiple locations.
—Joe