Powerhouse cast brings fresh energy to remake of a modern classic

4 stars

Steven Spielberg's 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer-winning book The Color Purple was a practically perfect film, moving and brilliant and so beloved that it's hard to imagine an audience that might want it remade.

But here we are, almost 40 years later with a new film, not entirely a remake because it also draws from the Tony Award-winning 2005 Broadway musical theatre production.

Lavishly staged and led by a trio of female powerhouse performers who act and sing the absolute heck out of their roles, Blitz Bazawule's new The Color Purple (it is killing me not to add the U in Color, but this is an American film, stupid spelling and all) warms the heart.

For those who never saw the original, the film follows the life of Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi as the young Celie, as the elder) across decades of her life in America's Deep South.

Celie has been married off by her abusive father to Mister (Colman Domingo), sent to help bring up his wayward children on Mister's farm in rural Georgia.

Having already been forced to give away her two children at a young age, and suffering under the violent rule of Mister, Celie has only her sister Nettie (Halle Bailey and Ciara as the younger and elder Nettie) as a positive force in her life.

But Mister sends Nettie off their property, and life passes by miserably for Celie except for the occasional visit from Mister's casual mistress, the blues singer Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson) who sees Celie's true value.

Mister's children appreciate Celie, and she develops a friendship with stepson Harpo (Corey Hawkins) and his wife Sofia (Danielle Brooks).

And as time passes and the world around them changes, the women around Celie give her the support she needs to stand on her own.

The 1985 film gave us Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, life-changing roles for both. The new film's leads are already somebodies. Henson is the Oscar-nominated star of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Hidden Figures; Danielle Brooks played Tasty in Orange is the New Black; and Barrino has a significant stage and recording career since winning the third season of American Idol in 2004. Each is super and superlative here, and it is surprising that Brooks won the film's only Oscar nomination - not because her Sophia isn't a revelation, but that all of them are deserving.

There's nothing toe-tapping about domestic violence and incest and so, having not seen the stage version, I was wondering how jarringly the singing and dancing might sit against the source material.

But Spielberg's film was very musical. Its soundtrack was produced by Quincy Jones who worked with Lionel Richie on that film's one musical number, Miss Celie's Blues, hauntingly sung there by Tata Vega. Thankfully, Miss Celie's Blues has been retained for Henson to belt out here. The musical numbers change how we understand these characters, particularly Celie whose thoughts and motivations we hear expressed in song lyrics, where Goldberg's Celie was practically mute in sorrow.

Director Blitz Bazawule takes a lot on his shoulders, with just a few films on his CV against the intimidating weight of his producers Spielberg, Winfrey and Jones, and makes interesting choices. He sensibly retains plenty of Spielberg's approach and aesthetic, but introduces movement and colour thanks to the musical numbers. Marcus Gardley's screenplay judiciously trims some of the brutality, or changes its context, and gives some characters redemptions that wouldn't have worked in 1985.

I'm not sure Spielberg would take the director's chair today. We've moved to an age where we want to see and hear people telling their own stories, and Bazawule gives a new energy to this modern classic.