The Color Purple (1985)

	Directed by: Steven Spielberg	COUNTRY USA GENRE Drama NORWEGIAN TITLE Purpurfargen RUNNING TIME 152 minutes
	Produced by: Steven Spielberg Kathleen Kennedy Frank Marshall Quincy Jones Jon Peters Peter Guber
	Written by (based on the novel by Alice Walker): Menno Meyjes

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Albert	Danny Glover
Celie	Whoopi Goldberg	½
Shug Avery	Margaret Avery	½
Sofia	Oprah Winfrey
Harpo	Willard Pugh
Old Mister	Adolph Caesar
Squeak	Rae Dawn Chong
Miss Millie	Dana Ivey
Swain	Laurence Fishburne

Review

Spielberg's rendition of Alice Walker's novel is a chauvinistic, excessive, sentimental fantasy that tries to recapture life in the Southern United States in the early twentieth century. The objective is to portray the harsh and unloving patriarchal society in which women found themselves, and to show how the spirit and union of these women enabled them to bear it all. Unfortunately, what might seem inspiring at first glance becomes more of a moralistic Disney cartoon as the film progresses. Spielberg overdramatises contrasts in order to increase his payoffs, adds shamelessly evocative music (for the first time not by John Williams), and paints with the widest brushstrokes imaginable. As he so often has set out to do in his post-1970s career, his mission here is to right historical wrongs, but he also desperately wants to do all the thinking for us, and if possible, run away with some of the glory himself. His whimsical shifts in tone make the film lackadaisical, thus rendering this triumphant epic rather insipid. It might work if you really want it to, preferably while wearing red stockings.