Film Review – The Color Purple (2023)

Broadway is open to all kinds of stories, making room for a variety of dramatic voices and tales of struggle. However, it’s a little difficult to understand the thinking that went into the transformation of Alice Walker’s 1982 book, “The Color Purple,” into a stage musical, with the original material dealing with all sorts of violence and bleakness, which isn’t normally used as a launch point for song and dance. Clearly, the idea worked, with the show doing extremely well since its debut in 2005, wowing audiences with the pure talent of the cast and the bigness of the material, sharing such raw emotion with immediacy only live theater can provide. Looking to reignite interest in the material, producers have returned “The Color Purple” to the screen (the novel was previously adapted into a 1985 Steven Spielberg film), looking to bring the musical event to a wide audience. The effort is appreciable and the acting is alive, but the loss of live performances is felt in this diluted take on female spirit and endurance. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com