Talking Pictures

Rich Bonaduce reviews “For Colored Girls”

Rich’s Quickie: “Crash” for VERY troubled colored girls.

For You: If you are a beleaguered woman, you may relate to the supposed powerful females who populate this story (based on a 1975 play), whether you are a colored girl or not (but it probably helps)…

For Who? And maybe I need to be colored to “get” this. Or a girl. Maybe if I were a colored girl that’d be great; or at least not a guy, since nearly every guy in this movie is a sorry example of manhood (but the one who isn’t doesn’t get much of a fair shake from his significant other, either).
Much this movie reeked of simply trying too hard; too pretentious, too dramatic, too MUCH. I noted as I watched that this movie has it all: drug addiction, sex addiction, alcoholism, spousal and child abuse, date rape, teen pregnancy, back-alley abortion, incest, adultery, closeted gays on the down-low, and finally defenestration (no need to look it up; it basically means throwing your kid out a window, and no I’m not kidding).
All of this just comes off as a Please Take Me Seriously from Tyler Perry sans dress, and he even attempts a pseudo “Godfather” sequence to miserable effect. Sadly, the 20 poems in the original play of a similar (but much longer) name find their way into the dialogue, and at the weirdest of times, causing the actors to LURCH into prose right in the middle of modern speech and the worst circumstances. I don’t know if such poetry makes for great movie dialogue, but these monologues did basically give each actress an opportunity to take center stage; but you can almost feel the pressure each must have felt to outdo the other as they chew the scenery.

Movie Grade: D

Director: Tyler Perry

Writers: Tyler Perry (screenplay), Ntozake Shange (play)

Rated R for some disturbing violence including a rape, sexual content and language.

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