This morning, my mom and I finally went to see Tyler Perry's new film, For Colored Girls. Admittedly, I was cautious due to the reviews I'd seen and the criticism I'd heard. Although Oscar rumors swirled, those hopes were seemingly dashed when many people came out denouncing the film, asserting that it was just another Perry melodrama, devoid of nuance and subtlety, full of stereotypes, and incapable of doing the source material justice.
And all of these thoughts are justifiable. Perry has a habit of dealing with surface-level issues without giving sensible models, solutions, or an in-depth look at motives and actions. Especially after watching Why Did I Get Married 2, it is obvious that Perry has problems telling consistent stories that make sense, using over-the-top acting and drama that appeal to the viewers' emotions and empathy and sympathy in order to bring them into the movie and convince them that said film is worth the viewing. Unfortunately, too many viewers "Stan" for Tyler to the point where criticism isn't valued and a serious, in-depth look at the works in question fails to be done.
Considering all these things, I was actually impressed with the film--albeit to an extent. Visually, the film is stunning. You're met with many colors throughout the film that complements the other aspects of the film. The beginning has Anika Noni Rose's character performing a solo ballet performance, which not only showcases her immense talent but gives the film a different visual feel.
The visuals are only second to the acting. Anika Noni Rose is amazing in every aspect; I can't sing her praises enough. The rest of the cast, men included, take Ntozake Shange's words and make them sound mellifluous and beautiful. They do an amazing job with making you feel their pain, enjoy their happiness, and journey to find their inner strength. Effortlessly, you become an active viewer and participator in the film.
However, the writing is where the problems come in. You can tell where Tyler's words end and Shange's words begin. These two very different writing styles aren't helped by the fact that although I've yet to complete reading the source material, I can tell that Perry has picked and chosen certain parts of the text to force into the different situations he's put the characters into. The writing is disjointed and seems that way throughout the entire film. There needed to be synthesis and sense, and that was absent from the film.
Again, the writing lacked depth, and it also lacked closure, which is seemingly requisite for a Tyler Perry Film. Honestly, Perry wouldn't know closure if a door slammed in his face. And his definition of closure is ridiculous as well. All these ladies go through heartbreaking circumstances that have broken them, one of them being Rose's character's rape. Her closure? Slapping the dead body of her rapist and sleeping with a butcher knife next to her bed. Thandie Newton's character has had to deal with childhood molestation/rape and incest that has caused her to cope by seeking out unattached sexual relationships with men. Her closure? Done through an argument and fight with her mother and Phylicia Rashad's character. Newcomer Tessa Thompson plays a teenager who becomes pregnant and gets a backdoor abortion that nearly kills her, followed by separation from her mother. Her closure? She goes away to college and has a party thrown in her honor! YAY!
Not.
What's really annoying is that all these stories get the Rapidfire Tyler Perry Solution Treatment (RTPST), in which everything is solved within the last five minutes of the film. Believe me, no matter what a character endures in the film, his or her issues from HIV to a cheating spouse to the murder of her children will all be rectified by the end à la "Fix it! Fix it!" from Why Did I Get Married 2. In all honesty, there is no closure. Although Kimberly Elise's character wraps things up by saying that she ultimately found God in herself, the line is delivered with distress and loss instead of the triumph that the book purports. We don't really get to see these women on their way to triumph, just them still working through their issues with no sign of deliverance. And then the movie ends, in the typical Tyler Perry fashion.
That's sad. These actors and actresses give amazing performances, yet are unfortunately working with subpar writing. They definitely make the best of it, but there's only so much you can do as an actor.
I feel like somewhere along the ride, Tyler Perry lost his way. Clearly, his style of writing wasn't a good fit with the moving poetry of Shange. And he ultimately lost the purpose of the original work. Perry admitted that he added Hill Harper's character so that the audience could see that black men weren't all bad, which any intelligent person already knows. The problem is that he used this addition for his own ego, making the story partially about the men instead of focusing on the women, their trials, their tribulations, and their attempts to overcome them. Perry, instead of trying to tell good stories, made it too much about him.
And that's part of where the problem comes in. Many people wondered whether or not Tyler was capable of successfully and convincingly telling the stories of black women, if he could write these women in ways that speak to their inner strength in the face of extreme hardship. Perry was able to do so to an extent, but this movie, aptly titled For Colored Girls, probably should have stayed that way.
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