The Color Purple (1985)

The critic praises the film's tenderness and love, Spielberg's convincing direction, and the cast's performances, calling it a lyric ode to the goodness in mankind and one of the loveliest parables ever created for the screen.

It was once fashionable to criticise Spielberg for a glossy, sugar-coated take on Walker's hard-hitting novel, but this is an impressive, dignified attempt to adapt a radical book into mainstream entertainment with a message. Whoopi Goldberg is wonderful in the lead, with strong support from Danny Glover, Margaret Avery and a pre-fame Oprah Winfrey.

The 1985 film is a sober and impassioned prestige literary adaptation with emotional generosity to spare. It stands out for its strongest gallery of female characters in any Spielberg work.

Spielberg's adaptation of Alice Walker's novel could be seen as a glossy, Oscar-baiting effort that softens the book's radical elements and employs flashy, emotional style, but it succeeds as a powerful, honourable attempt to bring an unusual story to mainstream audiences, thanks especially to a superb cast led by Whoopi Goldberg.

Spielberg has fashioned a grand, multi-hanky entertainment that is as pretty and lavish as the book is plain, combining rapturous and stirring parts with hugely improbable ones. The film lacks the realism and grit of the novel but manages momentum, warmth and staying power through its upbeat, affirmative fable style.

There are some great scenes and great performances but it is not a great film, marred by overblown production that threatens to drown in its own emotions. The characters from the novel remain vivid enough to carry the film despite the script's clutter and the director's smoothing out of rough edges into a fairy-tale fantasy.

The critic views the film as a beautifully shot but overlong piece of schmaltz that tones down explicit elements from the source novel, such as the lesbian relationship, while enraging some groups with its portrayal of black characters; it features strong performances but lacks impact overall.

The critic finds the adaptation frustrating and disappointing for embellishing the novel with stereotypes, generalities, and condescending attitudes while adding an overblown score and sentimentality that undermines its complexities.

Spielberg’s adaptation is seen as too earnest and too soft, losing the gutsy narrator and toning down the book’s lesbianism and feminism; the soupy score and lack of dramatic pulse are criticised, though Oprah Winfrey’s performance stands out.

The critic finds Spielberg’s first serious film overly sentimental and saccharine, with most characters reduced to one-note caricatures except for Whoopi Goldberg’s revelatory turn as Celie. It tests patience with an overwrought tone, bloated runtime, and an Africa-set second act that strains for historical importance, feeling like affected Oscar-bait.

The critic calls it a handsomely made but very flawed prestige picture hampered by Spielberg’s sentimentality and twee approach, which offsets the dark themes of abuse and racism with broad comedy and cloying elements. Strong performances from Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Margaret Avery carry the story despite the flaws.