Okay, Let's Talk About 'The Color Purple' (1985)

Alright, I finally revisited 'The Color Purple' and I'm still wrestling with it. It’s… a lot. I think the performances are undeniably powerful. Whoopi Goldberg, especially, carries the weight of Celie's trauma with such heartbreaking vulnerability. You feel every single blow she takes, every humiliation, and that's a testament to her acting. And Oprah? While I sometimes find her on-screen presence a little... Oprah-esque, she manages to mostly disappear into Sofia. That scene where she stands up to the police? Chills. Actual chills. But here's where I get a little stuck. The tonal shifts felt really jarring at times. One minute it's unflinchingly brutal in depicting the abuse, and the next it's almost… melodramatic? And while I appreciate the eventual triumph of the human spirit and Celie finding her voice, the ending felt a little too neatly tied up. It's like, after all that systemic oppression and personal devastation, a happy ending almost feels… I don't know, unearned? Or maybe that's just my cynicism talking today. I also wondered if maybe Spielberg wasn't the right choice to direct this. It feels like there's a certain… distance, a way he frames the story that feels a little too sanitized at times. I'm not saying he didn't handle it with sensitivity, but I also wonder if it maybe needed a director who had a more intimate or personal connection to the material, if that makes sense. Like someone who could really dig into the nuances of the Black experience in the South without feeling like he was an outsider looking in. Just a thought. Overall, it's a powerful flick, no doubt, but I think it's also a flawed one. Definitely worth watching (or rewatching) and discussing – there's just so much to unpack. What did you all think about the ending? Did it work for you, or did it feel a bit too… Hollywood?