Is The Color Purple 2024 version a good movie? What do the first viewers think about this musical?

38 years after Steven Spielberg’s film, The Color Purple is back in theaters.

The 1986 feature film stars Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Rae Dawn Chong, Oprah Winfrey and Margaret Avery. Based on the novel by Alice Walker, the first African-American woman in history to win the prestigious Pulitzer Prize, the film depicts the struggles of an African-American woman living in the South in the early 1900s.

Purple received 11 Oscar nominations without winning a single statuette. What caused Spielberg’s indignation.

In 2005, the novel was adapted into a Broadway musical. The 2024 film, directed by Blitz Bazawule, is a transposition on screen. purple color Version 2024 combines song and dance scenes and dialogue scenes.

It is directed by Fantasia Barrino (Celly) and Danielle Brooks (Sofia) – who have already played these roles in the musical – and Taraji P. Henson, Coleman Domingo, Holly Bailey, Corey Hawkins, Kiara, HER, and Phylicia Pearl Mpassi.

The feature film tells the story of three women in post-slavery America for 40 years. Despite the worst trials, they will always remain united. Nothing can extinguish their light and hope.

Oscar nomination

Out in our theaters this Wednesday, January 24th, the film has been nominated for the 2024 Oscars for Best Supporting Actress. Daniel Brooks. The actor and singer announces on the microphone Deadline :

“I think back to 1985 and the fact that Steven Spielberg’s version had 11 nominations and Steven himself didn’t even get nominated for best director and didn’t win any awards. Here we are many years later and I’m Lone Wolf. I feel very humbled by this. because of everything“.

But what do first time viewers think of Blitz Bazawule’s feature film? With 89 ratings and 17 reviews to date, the musical feature has an average rating of 3 out of 5 stars (and a press rating of 3.2 stars).

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For Louis Doch, the 2024 version is a real success: “Wow, that’s bullshit, one of the best musical-drama movies I’ve ever seen. I can tell you this will be one of my favorites in 2024. The casting is really impressive and incredible. Staging and music wow.“

Barbier Gilles, a big fan of Spielberg’s film, shares his opinion: “A remake of a Steven Spielberg film I’ve seen fifty times, it’s a must-see…just (maybe) too many songs. How nice to hear “sis” again. I highly recommend viewing this gem. Amazing cast in this 2023 version.“

Selene of Club AlloCiné, who gives it 4 stars, regrets that the film’s aesthetics prevent us from truly realizing the tragedy and drama of this story:

“The film opens with a happy and bright musical score that heralds the colors of blues and gospel on Broadway. Brightly lit sets, colorful costumes and photography contribute to the overall atmosphere of heartbreaking drama, but also imbued with a ‘strongly optimistic’ message.”

But we are relatively concerned about the general aesthetics, the sparkling musical pieces, with quite beautiful choreographies, between the message of hope and melancholy, but which diminish the whole tragic aspect, namely, the misfortune is never convincing. Life seems quite peaceful, the clothes are nice, everyone has cars from a strange era…

The immersion of the post-slavery African-American village is too watery, it even borders on the Disney style. It’s a good time, even if they give us the original novel, we clearly prefer Spielberg’s masterpiece.”

The musical removes the dramatic aspect

The opinion is shared by L’école fou, which writes: “SIf the film shines for its musical score and artist engagement, but also for its visual care, it still remains a worthless remake in every aspect.

The strength of the story lies in its harshness, the musical comedy approach removes all its content and therefore all its power. We wouldn’t follow Whoop, or Danny, or Margaret, or Oprah, and even less Uncle Stephen, even if he agreed to produce it.“

To celebrate AlloCiné Club cinema, “The purple version of 2024 only rarely manages to create a song of social misery and the violence that governs the relationship between the sexes: the songs and choreographies destroy sensitive and historical issues, reduced to canvas. A similar background to these ancestors. The tree around which the family finally gathers.

This comprehensive movement of the body makes us lose the meaning of the movements performed, the constant use of song forgets that the latter comes from the depths of beings, a reaction to a protest that cannot otherwise be expressed – which Steven Spielberg has wonderfully demonstrated at the time. Two sequences, one in an improvised cabaret built in a swamp, and one that combines vice and virtue, that is, the same audience of the cabaret and the faithful of the church.Well.

The result is a general vulgarity: the insult is produced in a cruelty that is at once caricatured and self-satisfied, the kiss exchanged between Celia and Shug, the taboo that demanded modesty is exhibited on the Broadway stage, the bath scene is transformed into an over-projection. The discovery of the two women on the giant gramophone, the discovery of the letter in “Monsieur’s” mailbox, leads Shug to snarl and throw his hands in the air before reading aloud with Célieux, a simplicity that removes doubts, restraints, and vibrations of breaking the ban.

The director mixes permanent gesticulation and staging, whimsy and analogy, forgetting that the shot must mean and that the image must be composed – the impression most have is a seductive camera that follows the illustrations in the hope of formal mastery. He just hangs out between dance performances.

Again and again, the show screams its understated virtuosity, energized by a cast that’s talented but without depth or life on screen. We would like to see such a reinterpretation on the stage and not in the cinema: it is a mistake…”

But it is best to form your own opinion. The Color Purple is a must see in the cinema.