Film: The Color purple
Cast: Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Phylicia Pearl Mpasi, Halle Bailey, Colman Domingo
Director: Blitz Bazawule
Rating: 3/5
Runtime: 141 min

For those who have seen Steven Spielberg’s version with Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey essaying the main characters of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel, this one is sure to seem pale in comparison. This film sticks closer to the stage/ Broadway version and is a musical drama with plenty of song and dance about.

It’s now forty-one years since the book was published and some time since the movie and the Broadway version came and went, so it would suffice to say that we were all expecting something new from this version. This is a musical unlike Speilberg’s version and therefore it becomes much more difficult for the characters to stay with you after the movie is done. Nevertheless, the cast, director and technical team do a bang on job to make this entertaining and vivid. Blitz Bazawule and scriptwriter Marcus Gardley smartly base this film on the musical, the novel, and the original film.