Fantasia Barrino gives Celie’s songs the force of someone struggling to speak up. Her performance in The Color Purple (2023) is worth the evening, though the film’s hurried storytelling does not always do her justice.
Fi1m perspective
When Fantasia Barrino sings as Celie in The Color Purple (2023), she does not let the force of her voice make expressing herself seem easy. The songs sound like things Celie has needed to say and struggled to say aloud. We were moved by that effort, which gives the musical numbers a purpose beyond letting a fine singer sing. Barrino is worth the evening, even when the film seems impatient to move on.
There are relatively few screen performances behind that lead role, and a long acquaintance with the part. Barrino played herself in the television film Life Is Not a Fairy Tale: The Fantasia Barrino Story (2006), then made her Broadway debut as Celie in 2007. Returning to Celie for director Blitz Bazawule’s 2023 film gave her a first major feature-film lead. She came to it with more experience of this character than of leading films. That makes it a useful place to begin watching her, but too little on which to judge everything she could do.
Bazawule’s emphasis on Celie’s imagination gives her room to work beyond the character’s outward circumstances. Her gospel- and soul-influenced singing has the strength the material needs, and she keeps the difficulty of speaking up audible within it. Marcus Gardley’s screenplay does not always give her that support: the hurried storytelling and determination to cheer us up can make Celie’s suffering seem too neatly dealt with. Danielle Brooks supplies feeling and force alongside her. The two performances are good reasons to stay with an uneven musical.
The reservation is how often the surrounding spectacle asks for as much attention as Barrino. We want the film to leave her alone with a number, because those are the passages in which Celie’s need to express herself comes through most clearly. We would welcome another leading role that gives her this much to sing and less to work around.
Biography
Fantasia Barrino, also known as Fantasia, is an American singer and actress. She was born on 30 June 1984 in High Point, North Carolina.
She rose to prominence after winning the third season of American Idol in 2004. Barrino played the role of Celie in the Broadway musical The Color Purple from 2007 to 2008, for which she received a Theatre World Award. She reprised the part in the 2023 film adaptation directed by Blitz Bazawule, her first major screen role. She has also provided a voice for an episode of The Simpsons.
