The Color Purple(2023)

Submitted by Julio M

Save for some adjusted minor details -and the musical numbers, since it is now based on a Broadway version-, it is pretty much the same movie as the 1985 version.

Short pooper:
Celie (Fantasia Barrino), with the help and inspiration of Shug (Taraji P. Henson), admonishes and curses “Mister” (Colman Domingo) and leaves him. “Squeak” (H.E.R.) tags along. Sofia (Danielle Brooks) goes back to her normal self. Celie successfully establishes a shop in Memphis. Mister becomes a loner drunk and eventually understands he must atone for all his evil, so he arranges for the return of Celie’s family from Africa. In the end, they all reunite and joyfully thank God.

Longer version:
In time, Celie, slowly but surely, thanks to the presence and support of Shug in her life, grows tired of her perpetual situation of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of Mister. The culminating point of her epiphany is when Shug, one day, checks the mailbox and, to her shock, discovers a letter from Celie’s sister, Nettie (Ciara). Behind Mister’s back, Celie reads the letter and finds out that Nettie has been living in Africa for many years, with Celie’s two children -Olivia and Adam- born from the incest she suffered at the hands of her father, Alfonso (Deon Cole).

In 1943, during an Easter Sunday gathering with everyone reunited around them, Celie finally musters the courage to stand up to Mister, confront him over his years-long cruelty towards her, leave to Memphis with Shug and declare that, until he ammends his ways towards her, everything he does will crumble. The commotion jolts Sofia out of her emotional slumber induced by her jail ordeal, thus returning to her previous, rambunctious personality. Also, Squeak -whose name, she reveals, was actually Mary Agnes- decides to leave Harpo (Corey Hawkins) and join Celie and Shug.

A couple of years later, Alfonso dies and it is revealed that he was not Celie and Nettie’s biological father; also, Celie has inherited her childhood house and mother’s store. With the help of her dear friends, she sets up a pants’ store that proves to be a success. One day, she receives the unexpected visit of Mister, who since has become an embittered, lonely drunk living in squalor; she reluctantly sells him a pair of pants while he expresses his intention of doing right by her. She decides to give him the chance of listening to him and he expresses the intention of pulling the strings necessary to allow the return of Nettie and the grown Olivia (Tiffany Elle Burgess) and Adam (Terrence J. Smith) from Africa.

Finally, in 1947, Celie reunites, joyfully and tearfully, after decades, with her beloved sister Nettie and meets her two grown children. Everyone join hands and express their gratitude to the Lord for how they have been able to overcome so many obstacles and find happiness.