Fantasia Barrino and Taraji P. Henson.Photo:Ser Boff

FANTASIA BARRINO as Celie and TARAJI P. HENSON as Shug Avery in THE COLOR PURPLE

Ser Boff

Here the singing and choreography move the story onto a different plane that’s more dreamlike and occasionally fantastical.

One number takes place on a giant phonograph, another segues into a black-and-white fantasy that becomes, in effect, a movie musical within a movie musical. It’s all closer to fable, burnishing an innocence that glows at the story’s center.

But fables tend to be full of suffering too (and inPurplethe pain to be endured reflects the bleak reality of Black life in the Jim Crow South).

Henson as Shug Avery.Ser Baffo

ARAJI P. HENSON as Shug Avery in The Color Purple

Ser Baffo

Henson brings playfulness, sensuality and flirtatious humor to the film, while Brooks is defiantly salt-of-the-earth with an astonishing Gospel voice (not for nothing did she play Mahalia Jacksonin a Lifetime movie). They enrichPurplewith what in the end are two harmonious forms of the human spirit, one giddily disregarding unhappiness, the other plowing straight into it.

Danielle Brooks (as Sophia) and Corey Hawkins.Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

DANIELLE BROOKS as Sophia and COREY HAWKINS as Harpo in THE COLOR PURPLE

Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

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Henson and Brookes, both in their performances and the characters they play, overshadow Barrino’s sad, recessive Celie. Barrino, who speaks in a husky, papery voice, doesn’t manage to make something eloquent out of the quiet stillness of the role, unlikeWhoopi Goldbergin the Spielberg film. Barrino tends to disappear all too well.

Then, at long last, the formerAmerican Idolpowerhouse gets to deliver a roof-rattling solo number. She kills it.The Color Purpleis in theaters Christmas Day.

source: people.com