SummaryFor Colored Girls brings to the screen Ntozake Shange's Obie Award-winning play, a poetic exploration of what is to be of color and a female in this world. [The Tyler Perry Company]
SummaryFor Colored Girls brings to the screen Ntozake Shange's Obie Award-winning play, a poetic exploration of what is to be of color and a female in this world. [The Tyler Perry Company]
The effect is like watching an opera without music. Or a musical drama in which no one sings. These departures from a realistic convention never feel like static set pieces - that's the great success of the film and of the poems themselves.
Perry's great gift to this unfilmable play is getting it on the screen, his sharp eye for casting and his evident affection and sympathy for black womanhood, even in movies in which he doesn't don a dress.
This movie is for people who like hardcore drama movies. If you don't like drama then don't watch it. Its that simple! This movie is very well written with a serious, and realistic plot that delivers. This movie demonstrates why Tyler Perry is so wealthy...BECAUSE HIS MOVIES ARE ART! This movie is heart-wrenching, realistic, entertaining, and captivating! The ONLY movies that can make me cry are Lion King and Tyler Perry films, and this is one of them. I also love Janet in this film, never knew she could act so well!
I feel this was an excellent piece of work. The only problem I see with this film is that it is a Tyler Perry production, not that this is a bad thing. Just that it seemed that all the baggage of Mr. Perry's previous work was brought along by the pro-critics. For some odd reason it was impossible for many of the critics to see this movie as it stands by itself.
It would also seem to me that the term melodrama has been incorrectly used when describing this film. By the mere definition of the word melodrama we know that it basically means over-acting, over emotional etc. But in the case of this movie, I don't see it. These women all went through extremely painful scenes, where the acting and the story line were appropriately matched. To really understand, you have to look at the baggage that each character is carrying just based on their life circumstances, I don't believe any of the critics who negatively reviewed this film did.
Furthermore, the critic who says this movie is filled with clichÃs, I beg to differ. There wasn't any "baby daddy drama", nor was there "single mom on welfare" subject matter here. I would say, ignoring Whoopi's part, you cold interchange any race/culture into any of these women's role in this movie.
Anyways, for those ignoring this movie because its a Tyler Perry production, I recommend you go see it. You won't be disappointed.
Though he has stepped up his game, Perry's plainspoken, unsubtle aesthetic is an uncomfortable match for the fragility of Shonge's speeches, and scenes abruptly switch between the language of Perry's scripted continuity sequences and sudden poetic soliloquies.
Perry has taken Shange's feminist word-and-movement portraits of disenfranchised African-American women and turned those howls into...a maddeningly choppy mess of a Tyler Perry movie.
The greatest frustration-not just in For Colored Girls, but in Perry's entire oeuvre-is witnessing talented (and often criminally underemployed) actresses struggle with the material they've been given.
He (Perry) has taken Shange's landmark poem cycle for seven African-American actresses, cut it up, and sewn its bloody entrails into a tawdry, masochistic soap opera that exponentially ups the "Precious" ante.
The Critics have done it again. They underrated yet another movie for the millionth. This movie is superb. These ratings are ridiculous... Its almost perfect. This is def 1 of Tyler Perrys best.
I didn't like this movie at all. The story is all over the place. It was too hard to figure out what the plot to this movie was about. Every scene had me wondering, What is the point. DId a horrible job with this movie. I Hope the play that he wrote this from was better. This is one of tyler worst movie. Tyler Perry is a good writer at times but I think this movie would have been netter if another director made it. Tyler Perry didn't know how to direct this movie with all these outstanding actors and actress. This movie was not believable. They did a good job acting in this movie but it wasn't believable because scene after scene there was always something wrong with the character , I think he could have did a way better job with directing. Not a good movie. Could have been better. Not horrible to some people , I could understand why, but to me this is his worst movie.
This is a classic case of a film that is filled with some really great acting, but the director's lack of knowing how to deal with the source material interfering with the quality of the film. The cast is immensely talented, with Janet Jackson, Phylicia Rashad, and Loretta Devine being the major standouts. Though there are two major missteps (Whoopi Goldberg and Thandie Newton), almost everyone in the cast is just lovely. However, the film itself is just a jumbled mess of awkward insertions of poetry and monologues that just doesn't work. Tyler Perry's style just doesn't mix well with the feminist musing that the film is supposed to be, and he gets in the way of some great performances.
I have always somewhat enjoyed Tyler Perry movies. However, this... This was just awful. So over written. So overly dramatic. I know it is a stage to screen translation, but wow did it not work. It basically hit every cliche I could think of in one fell swoop. As much as I hate to say it, this was one of the worst films I have ever seen.
I sat down on today (6/16/2012), two years after this movie has seen the silver screen, only to be pushed into the realm of Netflix. I immediately became infuriated at myself, angry at the idea that I did not myself make my way into the movie theater, to pay my hard earned dollar to review what I feel is one of the best productions Tyler has delivered to the world. I have had the opportunity to sit and to read a few of the bad reviews. I find that some of the critics are a bit short-sighted. There are those who would make this out to be a "Tyler Perry" blunder. There was even an implication that it brought all of "Tyler Perry's baggage" to it. This movie was inspiring, fresh, creative and moving. I happen to feel that it was a departure from the norm with Tyler and they way the script weaved each of the women's lives together flowed effortlessly. It was not choppy and each of the scenes seemed to appropriately compliment each other. This was a black man's "Macbeth". At its core it was "Shakespearean" and I feel that it was a riveting, display of showmanship. Forget the 22 year old immature rantings and the implications that Tyler has once again created a movie where actors and actresses "over-act". This was a fantastic learning experience for me as a man and it brought class to the Silver screen in a subtle way. I give Mr. Tyler Perry and the entire cast of "For Colored Girls" a thumbs up! Definitely a MUST SEE!