Review of Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls (2010)

When I heard that Tyler Perry would be helming the film adaptation of  Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, my first thought was, unfortunately, “damn.”  A reverently and simply whispered, “damn.”  Don’t get me wrong I appreciate what Tyler Perry has accomplished in a very short period of time. I go to his movies, and his signature character Madea, despite the critics, is actually part of a tradition of comedians in drag from Milton Berle to Flip Wilson’s Geraldine.  (For those of you who don’t know Flip Wilson’s Geraldine…shame.) On this, we as a community have been too hard on Perry, because whether we acknowledge it, we all have a Madea in our families just like we all have addicts and ne’er-do-wells.  Including me.

That said, I recognize that the most successful black director—or director—for that matter is not a filmmaker, and definitely had no real experience in employing the strategies and techniques that an adaptation of this place required.  This film would be its only chance for celluloid, and while it will continue to be financially successful, it will not be considered a great film.  So, like many black folks I know, I waited with baited breath.  (I was not pleased with Why Did I Get Married 2; the film had serious continuity problems and even the actors seemed out of sync…but I digress. See my mini-review on iTunes.) Considering that this will be the definitive film adaptation I am reminded of Spike Lee’s 4 Little Girls. Spike originally proposed the film when he was a film student; the parents said no, recognizing even if he didn’t that the story could only be told once and that Spike just wasn’t ready.  And he wasn’t.  When he was, they consented to the documentary; they had been waiting for him.   For Colored Girls was such a groundbreaking (Tony-nominated) play, and Perry isn’t skilled enough to make this adaptation the epic it needed.  We should have waited for him a little longer.

Opening weekend found me at the theatre with the husband who had already facebooked that he hoped the film wouldn’t be a male bashing film…a Color Purple, Women of Brewster Place, Waiting to Exhale moment for black women and would inevitably begin one of our notoriously serious discussions…

Previews….waiting….Previews…Lights dim…Previews….Waiting…Shhhh…Damn, more (black) people who won’t shut up…Movie starts…

So here goes… Tyler Perry did the absolute best directing job he could possibly do. 

Perry tells linear stories. For Colored Girls isn’t supposed to be a linear story.  And the first point of concern was how would Perry weave the poetics of Shange into a Tyler Perry script. One critic said the “words were from two different worlds.”  I must agree.  To alleviate the problem, Perry could have decided not to pen the script and let Shange revisit and revise, or use the monologues as necessary and when appropriate, or not at all.  Had Perry used flashbacks and maintained the integrity of the play’s original monologue-laden direction, then the use of monologues may not have been a problem.  As it stands, some scenes were forced and contrived in which the monologue breaks the continuity of Perry’s dialogue and jars the audience into another film space that seems foreign to the moment before it.

Now, to be fair, the film does have its endearing moments, but this is not a film for laughter.  This is a film to be internalized and to make us uncomfortable, not by which to be entertained.    

Were it not for the bevy of talented actresses, give or take a couple, this film would have failed miserably.    Loretta Devine, Phylicia Rashad, Kimberly Elise, and Anika Noni Rose, are clearly actors for the ages. Their performances are top-notch and they know how to make the unseamless transition from Perry’s to Shange’s to Perry’s dialogue at least look somewhat seamless. 

Rose’s is perfectly cast as the Lady in Yellow. You smile with her, and you are there on that floor with her.  More than a few of us recognized how a few moments can change a life.  And Perry’s need to give us a comedic moment is found as she delivers a slap to the corpse of her rapist. But this isn’t a moment for comedy, and though it gives us a chance to lighten up a bit, laughing, even here in this moment, feels wrong.

Kimberly Elise is absolutely phenomenal as an abused woman who does not leave in time.  She becomes this woman, who we know all too well. She is the woman who downplays her beauty to satisfy the jealous rages of her man, who endures abuse at home and at work, and who is so numb to her life that she lives one minute at a time.  This is where Perry is at his strongest. He’s made his career on the downtrodden black woman, and Elise’s performance transcends his usual fair with a simple question: Am I dreaming?  

Phylicia Rashad as the apartment building’s den mother offers a strong performance, and is most powerful when she forces Elise’s character to take partial responsibility for the deaths of her children.  Yet, even in this scene, I am reminded of Perry’s penchant for the homage. Oprah has this same scene with Lynn Whitfield in The Women of Brewster Place. Thanks for the shout-out, I’m sure, Mr. Perry. But she doesn’t really have her own story but through the stories of others, and this is a serious flaw here.  Who is this woman who lives between an abused mother and an abused daughter? Who is this woman who has survived?

Perhaps the best-defined performance of the film is Loretta Devine’s as the Woman in Green.  We knew the monologue was coming, and Perry actually directs this well. We know her. We know women who are strong everywhere but at home, who love to damn distraction, and who, one day, simply have had enough.  The movement of her monologue from one scene to the community center was a perfect transition and the highlight of the film. She has survived. Exhale.

Thandie Newton and Whoopi Goldberg are likewise exceptional but their characters lack the development to make their performances mean something to you.   Whoopi plays crazy well enough but we don’t interact with her enough to know her, and Thandie’s overnight change seems rushed. Had Perry realized that his audience would have engage for the additional half hour it would have taken to tell their stories we might appreciate them more.  And the young girl playing the sister is not unforgettable but I don’t remember her name, do you?  I’m sure we’ll see her again after this though.  Perry keeps his favorites working; she’ll show up on Meet the Browns or House of Payne eventually. 

Perry has no idea what to do with Kerry Washington in this film. Her monologue would have been wonderfully told in flashback but alas, we have her story in a kitchen with glassy eyes that don’t tell us much.   As with Rashad’s character, we must ask: Who is she? He created Hill Harper’s character so that their would be one good brother but doesn’t use him nearly enough. 

Macy Gray realizes her strength and weaknesses of her voice; she’s not going to be a leading lady and she doesn’t try to be.  She knows she’s scary…

Now…I have saved Janet Jackson’s performance until now, because the tragedy of her performance is that she really believes she can act.  Well, maybe as Penny, but by Different Strokes and Fame, something was lost on the way to the studio.  She did well in the first Why Did I Get Married because not much was required, but by the sequel, she and Perry just couldn’t get there.  His decision to cast her in For Colored Girls was clearly the remnants of a childhood crush and near idolatry.  She just doesn’t have the range to play this character, and part of that problem is her character isn’t three dimensional enough to help her.  She isn’t believable, because she isn’t real. A woman that strong and bitchy at the office is usually a pushover at the house.  Not for Janet though. She’s equal opportunity cold—and stiff.   And of course, she gets the DL brother.  Of course, she contracts HIV. Of course, she kills him. No. Wait. Are they sitting on the bed? Back to back? No knife in her hand? Really, Perry?  Are you dreaming?

Well, she does give the community center a check but still flinches when being hugged. Okay then.

And so it goes…all of the women convene on a rooftop to celebrate the young girl going to college. 

Whoopi comes by—still crazy—and leaves unchanged.  Janet has already confided that she has HIV and then they all rise to look at the stars or moon, fire going. Can anyone say Waiting to Exhale? End scene.  

For Colored Girls could have been an epic but it’s an enjoyable movie. Perry has been focusing on abuse so long he misses the point that the play is about empowerment, not abuse. When those women stand on the stage, they stand there to tell their stories as stories of survival from the abuse that could have killed them, made them kill themselves.  But they only considered it…

So, go see the movie. Love the movie. Be inspired to write poems and sing (cue my Color Purple moment.) Buy the DVD, not the bootleg. Support all efforts for a Broadway revival.   Most of all, though, survive and surpass. Period.