FOR COLORED GIRLS

Based on an award winning Play from the 1970’s (full title For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf), which was technically a choreo-poem, i.e. a piece that combined poetry with dance which has now been adapted, lengthened and directed by Tyler Perry.  Mr. Perry is somewhat of a bete noir with critics generally for his whole slew of mega successful Madea movies, and it is the fact that his talent and fame had allowed him to make this movie that has been it’s main controversial talking point.  

True, it ambles along at parts (particularly in the first half) and plays up many of the stereotypes, and is more than a little dated, but along the way it provides a vehicle for some of our finest black actress to give outstanding performances that make it so easy to engage in this piece.  They include Loretta Devine, Phyllis Rashid, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington and special mention to Kimberley Elise who surely deserves an Oscar nod for her work here.  Badly served is Whoopi Goldberg who overacts as much Janet Jackson underacts (Manola Dahrgis, the usually no-holds barred NY Times Critic was un-characteristically generous with her comment ‘Miss Jackson is, to put it gently, an actress of limited expression’.)  She’s sadly out of her depth playing a Black ‘Prada Devil’ as she doesn’t have the same body of work as Ms Streep to carry it, but she has had work done on her body (hence the face that can only stare),  but saying that I do wish I could get biceps that big.