Review: For Colored Girls

Review: For Colored Girls

Rating: ***

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 32%

Audience: 77%

Two-Thirds of Rotten Tomatoes' critics really disliked this movie. In general, I find that most male critics don't find much to like in Tyler Perry's movies. Let's admit it. Mr. Perry understands and empathizes with women in ways most male filmmakers don't. And this film, borne of Ntozake Shange's feminist play from the very angry 1970s, doesn't portray men sympathetically.

In addition, the play, a series of poems spoken by nine characters, is not easy to translate to film. Some of the poetry, however, weaves effectively in and out of the movie, spoken as soliloquies. For the most part, it works, but some of the actresses are stronger than others, especially Kimberly Elise as Crystal, Anika Noni Rose as Yasmine, and Macy Gray as Rose. Less convincing are Janet Jackson as Jo and Whoopi Goldberg as Alice.

When the play made its way to Broadway in 1976, it was astoundingly new and explosive, giving voice to women who had been been denied their right to express their pain. A great deal of time has passed. In all sorts of creative venues, women of all colors have continued to express their anger at all kinds of injustice at the hands of men. We've heard these voices in our homes in television programs like Law and Order and in movies like Precious. Perhaps our heightened awareness makes a film like For Colored Girls seem dated, but the problems highlighted by the movie are still here in all their ugliness.

It is a flawed film, but I applaud the heart and passion that Tyler Perry brings to it. In the end, those two qualities transcend the flaws.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it