It's dated, theatrical and over-the-top. In the 35 years since the play's premiere, it still doesn't cut black men a lot of slack.
But Tyler Perry's film adaptation of Ntozoke Shange's legendary "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf" bristles with passion, poetry and ambition. And if his "For Colored Girls" doesn't overcome the play's staginess or Perry's own limitations as a dramatist, it's not because he doesn't give it his best shot and his best cast - from Thandie Newton and Whoopi Goldberg to Anika Noni Rose, Loretta Devine and Kerry Washington. He doesn't embarrass them, himself or the play.
Perry reset this "choreopoem" - seven archetypal women, dancers, delivering monologues - in an inner-city apartment building, setting up a community of relatives, neighbors, acquaintances and employees. The high-powered magazine publisher Jo (Janet Jackson) may live uptown where she suspects her man of cheating. But her employee, Crystal (Kimberly Elise), is stuck in a dingy walk-up and an abusive relationship (Michael Ealy).
Phylicia Rashad plays the nosy landlady, whose "I used to be you" is a favorite bit of advice that few of her tenants heed. There's sexually assertive bombshell barmaid Tangie (Newton), who uses men and insultingly kicks them out the door in the morning. Juanita (Devine) is a nurse, struggling to teach neighborhood women safe sex and what not to put up with in relationships even though she's putty in the hands of her two-timing man.
Tangie's naive younger sister, Nyla (Tessa Thompson), is just now coming into her own sexually. And their cult-following mom (Goldberg) is no help, keeping the sisters apart, judging Tangie for her promiscuity. Nyla takes dance lessons from a great role model, Yasmine (Rose), a proud woman who keeps her distance from men but conveys a sexy, self-assured gentility. And Kelly (Washington) is the social worker who stumbles into some of these lives, mainly due to Crystal's unraveling home life.
"Being colored is a metaphysical dilemma I haven't conquered yet" is the mantra here, a "dark phrase" that sums up these women as they face rape, murder, abortion and betrayal.
That high-minded language, delivered with bravado by the various players, can't help but provoke eye-rolling on occasion. Perry's additions to the script are more matter-of-fact than florid, and he can't quite commit to making this a more artful take on the play. We can fret over what a real stage-to-screen wizard like Julie Taymor would have done with this material - something more daring, certainly.
But Perry's great gift to this unfilmable play is getting it on the screen, with his sharp eye for casting and his evident affection and sympathy for black womanhood, even in movies in which he doesn't don a dress.
'For Colored Girls'
Our grade: B
Genre: Drama
Running Time: 134 min
MPAA rating: R
Release Date: Nov 5, 2010
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