The fundamental first step toward understanding director, producer and writer Tyler Perry's film adaptation of Ntozake Shange's 1975 choreopoem stage play, "For Colored Girls," is to dispel a major misconception about the film: It is not directed solely at black females.
The subject matter of identity and the African American experience is hardly new ground for Perry, creator of wildly successful stage plays-turned-feature films such as "Madea's Family Reunion" (2006) and "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" (2005), but never has he explored the issue of race with such tenderness and unabashed attention to emotional detail.
The plot follows the multifaceted and interweaving lives of several African American women, each with a distinct chromatic identity: brown, blue, red, orange, green, purple and yellow. Perry added two additional characters who were not in Shange's original work — "lady in white," depicted by Oscar-winner Whoopi Goldberg, and a character known only as Gilda, played by Phylicia Rashad of "The Cosby Show" (1984-1992) fame. Actress Kimberly Elise and singer/actress Janet Jackson team up with a brazen construct of personalities and larger-than-life characters to round out the vibrant cast.
Connections between the characters span a wide range of interpersonal relationships, from mother-daughter to casual encounters amplified and dissected throughout the film.
The story begins in an apartment building in Harlem, N.Y, where several of the "colored women" reside. Kerry Washington's character, Kelly (Blue), arrives to investigate a possible case of child abuse in Crystal's (portrayed by Elise as Brown) apartment at the hands of her war veteran, live-in boyfriend.
Meanwhile, Loretta Devine as Green, in no uncertain fashion tells off her ex-lover, and the stories of the individual women begin to unfold and meld into each other as the plot expands itself over the course of a few weeks.
Viewing and appreciating "For Colored Girls" requires a certain degree of openness and a willingness to be uncomfortable. Some viewers will approach the film as though they are bracing themselves for a natural disaster or preparing for a social and mental construct overhaul due to the graveness of the content. Yet the film, true to its choreopoem origins, brings to the forefront interesting points of introspection about the portrayal of women of color, especially African American women, in film and media.
While a previous knowledge of the choreopoem would serve the viewer well, it is not necessary for a complete appreciation of what Perry and the cast are trying to convey through the highly stylized — though bitterly sympathetic — telling of the journey of American women harnessing the strength to move past the pain and dealing with grief, hope, the loss of innocence and relationships.
It appears as though Perry has been working his way toward this film for years, practicing and honing his cinematic and artistic skills in his stage plays while exercising his maximalist production style in his newest endeavor, complete with over-the-top lighting and costume contrasts amid understated yet pivotal scenes.
The film is universal in its meaning and does justice to the original medium. Perry takes poetic and creative license in mixing up the original choreopoem between the characters, which serves to enhance the fluidity of the work. The portrayal of pain is specific and clean, and it could have gone awry very easily. Perry successfully treads the line between soap-style implausibility and reality.
"For Colored Girls" is an emotionally charged film, but it's not so daunting as to be written off as insurmountably deep and depressing. Its intentions are clear, and Perry and his cast and crew should be applauded for taking on such a largely influential work and translating it into a feature film.
Such a task may have ended the career of a less seasoned director more concerned with pleasing the masses than remaining true to his own artistic integrity. Perry truly forges his own road to the end of his own rainbow in "For Colored Girls" and unapologetically and beautifully exposes the joys, sorrows and soul-moving realities that make us appreciate our individual rainbows.
The emotional trail of "For Colored Girls" ventures deeper than some viewers may be willing to explore and, for this reason, should not be missed. The earnest acting by the more-than-capable cast, combined with the creative freedom Perry assumes and explores, transforms what may otherwise be written off as "another film about race" into a study of the themes of friendship, self-knowledge, self-love and sisterhood.
