The Color Purple1985

74/100 There is a scene perhaps five minutes into this movie where our protagonist calmly and matter-of-factly states that she's had children by her own father, and I'm personally more scared by that than anything from Jaws. However, while there are a good amount of these impactful scenes settled throughout, I can see why Spielberg thought he wasn't a good fit for this movie. Alice Walker's original novel, and this story by extension, are extremely dark and heavy. However, Spielberg doesn't approach with any less than his usual more optimistic style, and it creates this weird offset as hopeful music and slapstick humour is forced in between scenes of horrific treatment of the central women by the men in their lives. The film also hints at romantic tension between Celie and Shug Avery, but never goes quite far enough with this for it to feel like anything but bait, which is sad for such a seemingly progressive movie. However, when this movie hits, it really hits, as despite Spielberg's direction not quite capturing how dark the story is, it does draw you into the world quite well. This small stretch of country in the South becomes its own fictional kingdom on the same level as the other locations Spielberg has created. Whoopi Goldberg also does very well as the lead here. I feel her performance as Celie is amazing, and I think more comedic actors should be handed serious roles, as it seems to rarely fail. Here, she does better than ever, with scenes such as the one where Celie reunites with her sister at the end, purely carried by both of their acting. There are several scenes like this throughout the film, such as the one where Shug Avery, played by Margaret Avery, reunites with her preacher father, adding a lot of heart to the movie. Danny Glover also adds a lot as the villain, Albert or "Mister". He made me hate him so much that even at the end after his punishment, I felt he deserved worse. Overall, I feel this movie's pretty good. Probably should've gotten a black director to do it for a more cohesive style, but as of now this is what we've got and it really isn't that bad. It's not perfect, but nothing is, and it's got enough good stuff in it and enough heart that the flaws don't matter all that much.