THE COLOR PURPLE. Directed by Steven Spielberg; written by Menno Meyjes; produced by Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Quincy Jones for Warner Bros. Starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey. Rated PG-13 (implied more often then actual violence; intense adult situations).
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It's an appropriate season of the year for The Color Purple, which is something of a small miracle. Director Spielberg's name is, of course, virtually synonomous with hugely popular movies about white middle-class urban males whose lives are touched by fantasy.
But here is a sensitive and moving portrait of a poor, rural, black woman for whom life is a series of harsh realities. And—here's the miracle—it'a very, very good!
Celie (Goldberg) has a mostly miserable childhood. She has two children by her middle teens, but she's denied even the small joys of raising them. Sustained only by her close relationship with her sister (Akosua Buaia), she is eventually deprived of that solace as well by her abusive husband Mr. (Glover).
But her intelligence, good humor, sensitivity and kindness eventually, slowly, become apparent. By the middle of the movie we find we're quite attached to Celie and proud of the strength of character she has developed in the face of such adverse conditions. In fact, I'll depart from my usual rule about not disclosing endings to say that if you can just make it through the almost oppresive first two-thirds of The Color Purple, the last one-third is much more upbeat and is worth the wait.
Much of the credit for the impact of Celie's character goes to Goldberg, whose debut performance is most impressive. Her supporting cast is also fine, with Winfrey (it's a first movie for her, too) a standout as the brassy, beaten and then resurgent Sophia. Glover's courage as well as his acting is to be commended. His previous major roles have been sympathetic (Places in the Heart) and even heroic (Silverado). Mr. is disgusting, cruel and eventually pathetic—quite a departure.
There is an over-romanticism in The Color Purple' s happy scenes, as well as too much melodrama in the sad or even tragic parts. And a few narrative loose ends may come to mind after the movie is over. But the characters are so compelling, and the visual style so hypnotic, that these excesses and slight flaws can be easily forgiven.
The one thing that might keep some viewers from enjoying The Color Purple is that much of the story is so depressing. There are no sympathetic white characters in the movie, for example. But a woman like Celie, born in the late 1800s, probably could have lived her whole life without meeting a genuinely kind white person. However, there are no decent men either. Celie draws her strength from and feels love only for women. Because they are the only characters who exhibit strength and are capable of love.
But if you can just focus on Celie, and Goldberg makes this easy, The Color Purple is eventually uplifting. You can see how it feels to be abused and oppressed into non-personhood. Then how it feels not only to survive that oppression, but to be strengthened by it. To become at last content, at peace, and surrounded by love.
January 15, 1986