This movie had been pressing in on my brain since I finished viewing it so I might as well get this review in with the hopes of finding some peace.

Tyler Perry’s silver screen adaptation of For Colored Girls was a great movie and I enjoyed it very much. The acting was on point, the storylines were engaging, and I generally love stories about women. Thandie Newton stepped into that bad girl role with incredible ease and her startling and abrasive anger made me alternately shake my head and laugh. I could laugh with her character because I understood her brand of anger and her ability to make it absurd and laughable. Phylicia Rashad, beautiful as ever stood in to keep the entire cast of troubled women from unraveling with her character’s display of wisdom and wit. Ms. Jackson played the part of the ice queen to perfection, and Kimberly Elise’s character showed us how easy it is to lose track of your dignity and self-esteem and the devastating effects of it all. I applaud Tyler Perry’s effort and am pleased that he seized the opportunity to breathe new life into this important work by Ntozake Shange. My commentary would not be complete if I did not mention the fact that I portrayed the lady in red in a monologue for a college drama class. I love Shange’s work, and even hesitated in viewing this adaptation for fear that it would not meet up to my own expectations and experience in reciting her work.

I can’t say I’m anywhere near as critical of the movie as I am pleased with it, but there were some issues with the work that have irritatingly set up shop in my head, which may reveal both its effectiveness and some of its weakness. The rape scene disturbs me more and more as time passes by because it highlighted how vulnerable each and every one of us is to acts of violence. Those that we think we know well are capable of betraying our trust and that may in fact be more devastating than any one random act of aggression and abuse. This part of the movie, though painful and unsettling, was a key component of the entire story.

I felt at times that some of the women had generally fallen asleep at the wheel. How many times can a grown woman who definitely knows better allow a grown man to walk in and out of her life every few days? And why would I want to listen to her recite a poem about it after it became painfully clear that he was just a clown anyway? Why should I feel sorry for you if your live-in friend has been beating up your kids, you tell him that you’re not going to marry him and act surprised when he takes his foolishness to another level? If you let him beat up on you, I suppose that’s your business but the kids? He would have been the one eating concrete, and I do mean sooner than later. I am typically a big crier in movie theaters at the slightest provocation, but certain scenes such as these left me dry-eyed and painfully aware of just how much human beings can and will usher in their own misery.

Then, of course, there was that pink elephant in the room called man-bashing. Can we find a way to show women demonstrating empowerment without making all or most men look like sewer rats? Let me put this out there - there’s no excuse for any man who molests small children and the otherwise vulnerable, nor one who uses his physical strength or economic position to beat, rape or kill women. Clearly Perry knows his audience and shows no shame in catering to females. Women support his work and he communicates his appreciation for that through his themes. He will occasionally highlight one or two male characters who are good and try to support women, but they too have to pay some sort of price for all of the wrongs done before their arrival on the scene. A storyline is not a storyline without some sort of conflict, but I’m talking balance here. One theme often not discussed in many movies is that many times women are to blame for other women’s suffering, and women are often responsible for helping to raise no-good men by displaying their own misogynistic tendencies.

Overall I applaud Perry and will continue to support him but I do believe it is time for all of us to turn the page on how we digest these recurring cinematic themes. For Colored Girls is a worthwhile event for moviegoers and inspiration for us all to examine our beliefs about ourselves and the opposite sex.

Chandra Adams
Author
Shades of Retribution