5/5
ONE WORD REVIEW: ASTOUNDING
Steven Spielberg’s interpretation of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel is magnificent, a piece of cinematic mastery. Everything from the screenplay to the scenery is beautifully written. Furthermore, Whoopi Goldberg’s introduction to cinema playing the beloved lead Celie, is astounding, as are the performances by Oprah Winfrey and particularly, Danny Glover. Despite Walker’s dismissal of the film as an inaccurate presentation of the novel’s themes and narrative in the introduction to a recent publication of the book, the film is very impressive. The book is much more emotional on the whole than the book, but certain scenes are slightly more powerful on screen; for example, the separation between mother and child feels much more prominent when filmed. The film maintains the books individuality in terms of the series of letters to God, with Goldberg narrating over certain scenes saying, ‘Dear God’. Absolutely lovely, but completely necessary to read the novel first.
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