Taking a successful play from the stage to the movies can be very tricky. For every AMADEUS and A FEW GOOD MEN there’s a AGNES OF GOD or NIGHT, MOTHER that just doesn’t connect. Tyler Perry has a good track record in putting his own stage productions on film. Now he tries to adapt another author’s work with FOR COLORED GIRLS based on the 1976 Tony Nominated “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” by Ntozake Shange. The results make for an uneven film.
The main setting for the film is a fifth floor walk up apartment building in NYC where most of the characters reside. Gilda(Physhia Rashad) is the tenant representative who watches over her neighbors and tries to keep the halls tidy. Crystal(Kimberly Elise) is a working mother of two toddlers living with her boyfriend Beau Willie(Michael Ealy)who has come back from combat disturbed and bitter. When abuse is suspected they are visited by a child protective services worker Kelly(Kerry Washington) who is a married to a police detective Donald(Hill Harper). Crystal works downtown for a demanding fashion magazine editor,Jo(Janet Jackson) who is dealing with an unfaithful husband, Carl(Omari Hardwick). Sixteen year old Nyla(Tessa Thompson) is taking dance lessons from Yasmine(Anika Noni Rose), who is just starting a relationship with Bill(Khalil Kain). Nyla shares an apartment in the walk up with her mother Alice(Whoopi Goldberg) who spends almost all her time zealously working for her church. Down the hall is Alice’s other daughter Tangie(Thandie Newton), a wildly promiscuous bartender. On another floor lives Juanita(Loretta Devine) a nurse who divides her free time between working for a woman’s support group and contending with her undependable boyfriend Frank(Richard Lawson). The worlds of these woman collide in unexpected ways during the course of the film.
Unfortunately the stage roots of this film come through and disrupt the flow of the story. The play’s poems become monologues that the different characters launch into at regular intervals during the course of the action.The other actors in the scene can only stare at the speaker while the camera slowly zooms in as they tell their tale. Even a sleazy back alley abortionist(played by Macy Gray) gets her own soliloquy. At one point two characters deliver their speeches at the same time like “dueling monologues”.While this works with a single actor on a bare stage, on film it seems very artificial and theatrical. Also Perry’s decision to carry over the play’s decision to have most of the main characters clothed in one color (Alice is always in white, Jo in red, etc.) becomes very distracting as does his choice to go from foreground focus to background focus several times during scenes. I was very surprised at how all the main male characters save one were miserable abusive wretches who make the the women endure more horror and tragedy than a a year’s worth of Lifetime TV movies. Many modern thrillers have earned the tag of “torture porn” for their excesses. This movie could be an example of “misery porn” as it showcases one heartbreaking incident after another. I will say that the ladies give their all in their performances. The ending is meant to be uplifting, as in the old song ” Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves”, but by that time the viewer is just drained and exhausted. At least we can be grateful that Perry decided not to insert his Madea caricature into the movie in order to lighten things up.
Overall Rating: Two and a Half Out of Five Stars
