Whether you’re a fan of his work or not, Tyler Perry has built a massive media empire that has major sway with his devoted audience. So when Perry puts his full writer/director weight behind a project, people take notice. For Colored Girls, adapted from a stage play by Ntozake Shange, is Perry’s latest stab at serious, non-Madea drama after executive producing last year’s powerful Precious. So exactly how successful is Tyler Perry’s translation from stage to screen?
Whether you’re a fan of his work or not, Tyler Perry has built a massive media empire that has major sway with his devoted audience. So when Perry puts his full writer/director weight behind a project, people take notice. For Colored Girls, adapted from a stage play by Ntozake Shange, is Perry’s latest stab at serious, non-Madea drama after executive producing last year’s powerful Precious. So exactly how successful is Tyler Perry’s translation from stage to screen?{{page_break}}
For Colored Girls’ story is told through the lives of several women in New York City, as they meet, conflict, and learn from each other. Each one of the women’s flaws work to compliment the strengths of the rest, as we eventually see the entire puzzle of the narrative fit together. In short, this film is about women dealing with every single problem that an after-school special has ever been made about, and how those problems interact. Although you would think this structure would prohibit the narrative from digging very deeply into each character, Perry smartly strings storylines together in order to give the audience as much information as possible in an efficient manner.
The film is nothing less than a powerhouse of African American actresses. Perry’s standard right hand woman, Janet Jackson, rounds out an uber-recognizable cast of everyone from Phylicia Rashad to Whoopi Goldberg. TV and movie vets fill out even the smallest roles in the film, helping to keep the often-grim story emotionally charged with solid acting.
And grim this story most definitely is. All of the gritty, over the top coincidences that pervade the theater are present in Perry’s adaptation. Life-altering plot points roll by at a brisk pace, while often you will be challenged to keep the characters’ web of interactions clear as serendipity draws them all together. The film works hard to tug at your emotional heart strings while still pushing the narrative forward for each one of the characters. It’s mostly successful with the emotional turns it takes, but the narrative does often suffer due to an overabundance of leading characters and storylines.
The true Achilles heel of this film is the poor pacing caused by each character’s incessant soliloquizing. Each major character has at least one of these speeches/poems/diatribes in which they eschew the cinematic for the literary. It’s actually quite painful to watch as the inherent capabilities of film are sidelined for minutes at a time while a static shot of a character talking to herself is the only thing on screen. Perry’s largest mistake in the adaptation process was putting the focus on these moments, which feel more like a filmed play than a compelling movie.
Overall, this style creates a film that often has trouble keeping your attention. For all the dramatic plot twists and genuine drama, Perry has made the movie feel distant and inaccessible. Instead of reveling in basic feelings of grief or horror, Perry pushes the film into the odd liminal state between a stage play and film, where feelings are hidden beneath a veil of confusing words and baffling sentence structure. The interesting premise is spoiled by a long tail end of extended speeches and a slowly resolving plot.
Overall Score: 6.75 — Okay. (6s are just okay. These movies usually have many flaws, didn’t try to do anything special, or were poorly executed. Some will still love 6s, but most prefer to just rent them. Watch more trailers and read more reviews before you decide.)
For Colored Girls has some interesting aspects but is overall poorly paced. A movie that is too focused on the stage material it came from.
