Review: The Color Purple

The film to stage musical to musical film pipeline has been going strong for a while now, with results best described as "mixed". Even great musicals can become average films, and with a perfectly good film version already in place a musical take has even more obstacles to overcome.

So it's a relief that that the new musical version of The Color Purple - featuring songs from the 2005 musical, which in turn built on both the 1985 Spielberg film and the 1982 novel by Alice Walker - feels like a natural extension of what went before. Directed by Beyonce collaborator Blitz Bazawule, it's in turn riotously energetic and sombre, music thrumming through the Georgia of a century ago like a heartbeat.

Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi) has it rough from the start. Pregnant at 14 with her second child to her father Alfonso (Deon Cole) raising her, it's only her younger sister Nettie (Halle Bailey) that provides her with any joy. After Alfonso gives away her newborn (delivered by a midwife played, in a nice cameo, by Whoopi Goldberg, who made her screen debut in the 1985 film), he marries her off to the superficially charming "Mister" (Colman Domingo). 

It is not a happy marriage. When Nettie flees Alfonso's clutches, she finds safety with her sister - for a time, as Mister is no better. Resisting his advances as well, she's thrown out, leaving Celie alone in a loveless house. 

Years pass and other women come into her life. There's force of nature Sofia (Danielle Brooks), who won't accept the violence and abuse Celie (now played by Fantasia Barrino) sees as her lot in life. And Shug Avery (Taraji P Henson) local girl made good singing the blues and love of Mister's life, rolls back into town stinking drunk. She's looking for a place to dry out; what she finds helps rekindle her passion for performing and her love of... well, her relationship with Celie is largely a matter of suggestion here.

There's a lot of heartbreak and pain here, and no shortage of brutality either. A big part of what makes the musical numbers work is the way they tap into the inner lives of Celie and those around her, the sorrow that fills their lives and the strength they find to keep going. Occasionally shading into the fantastic, the big group numbers underline the sense of community that runs throughout the story, while the solo songs driving home the sadness and isolation the characters struggle with.

As with all musicals, different songs will connect with different people; for mine, the earlier, more blues-influenced songs hit harder, and Shug's big numbers are always a stand-out. But across the board, the songs are strong enough to justify this film all on their own.

That's not to take away from the performances, or from Bazawule's direction. Swerving between authentically lived-in and woozy fantasy, this first and foremost feels like it's coming from the heart. It's a powerful, all-encompassing experience, one that - to use an over-used phrase - takes audiences on a journey. 

The feel-good ending (even for some of the nastier characters) is both joyous and earned; it's a hard road to travel, and everyone on it deserves a shot at redemption.

- Anthony Morris

 

 

 

*

Review: Priscilla

There's a lot of index cards that make up the Elvis story, and Priscilla Presley is usually shuffled a fair way down the pack. She doesn't have much of an impact on the music side of things; you'd think being his wife would make her central to his personal life, but it seems most of the good stuff - the drugs, the affairs, the trip to visit President Nixon - took place without her.

Sophia Coppola's take on Priscilla's biography is one that fits her own filmography like a glove: Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny) was a young woman trapped in a gilded cage. Pretty much from the moment the fourteen year-old was introduced to the 24 year-old Elvis (Jacob Elordi) on an US Army base in Germany she was kept from maturing, stuck living a life that seemed ideal yet increasingly failed to give her what she wanted and needed.

It's the early courting scenes that (intentionally) have the most life here, with Elvis as a good ol' boy with pure intentions and a lot of heartbreak and loneliness after the death of his mother. Priscilla is a young woman on the verge of something she can't name, only to make the one choice that erases any chance of her finding out.

The issue of the creepy age gap is largely defused - seems Elvis wasn't all that interested in her sexually no matter what her age. But the question of exactly what Elvis did want from her remains up in the air, even as he woos both her and her parents, getting them to agree to her staying (chaperoned) at Graceland.

Elvis clearly has firm opinions about her behaviour and dress that he's not afraid to impress upon her - if it'd give her an external life it was ruled out, though considering his massive fame keeping her close wasn't entirely unjustified. But the result was that much of her life with him was one of benign neglect, leaving her at home or out of things while he was busy being Elvis outside of Graceland. 

Best guess is she represented an ideal of womanhood Presley felt he needed in his life, even as he was popping pills, sleeping with Ann-Margaret and partying with the Memphis Mafia. Priscilla seemingly has everything she could want, only nobody ever asks her what she needs.

Priscilla is on the fringe of big things, but Coppola never leaves us feeling that we're missing out. Elvis' life is big but bland and unexamined - it's Priscilla's growth, her realisation that she's never going to be anything more than an object in her marriage, that's the real action here.

Not that "action" is quite the right word. The usual biopic list-checking of big events shows up from time to time, but the insights into The King are limited (there isn't a single Elvis song on the soundtrack) and stakes are rarely all that high. Priscilla is frustrated and stifled, Elvis is more neglectful than anything else, and when she finally decides she wants out Elvis knows it's time to let her go.

Still, both lead performances are spot-on, and the hazy vibe of life in Graceland is evocative and effective. It's a story in a minor key; if it feels like bigger things are just out of sight - for both Elvis and Priscilla - that's kind of the point.

- Anthony Morris

Review: Ferrari

The latest in Michael Mann's examinations of men under the pump, Ferrari features something of a gear change. Now pushing eighty, Mann is usually drawn to men of action, even in biographies (Ali). This look at a month or so of the life of Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) takes place in 1957, when his racing days are long behind him. In a world of kinetic frenzy, Ferrari is on the sidelines directing; read into that what you will.

Not that this is two hours of Enzo lying by the pool sipping a Negroni. The opening sees him slipping silently away from one woman - his secret lover Lina (Shailene Woodley), with whom he has a son about to be confirmed (but will Enzo give him the Ferrari name?) - to return to his wife Laura (Penelope Cruz). She says hello by shooting at him. 

Work isn't going much better. Partly because Laura owns half the company but their personal life is in ruins after the death of their son, mostly because Enzo is focused entirely on racing but it's selling cars that pays the bills. When a new driver comes a-knocking, Enzo is watching his current top driver flinging a car around the track in order to reclaim a speed record they lost just hours earlier. Enzo says he doesn't need a new driver; no prizes for guessing how quickly that changes.

No one event can solve all his problems, but winning the 1000 mile cross country Mille Miglia promises to steady his speed wobbles. If you know the details of the 1957 race, then you know what to expect; if you don't, Mann and scriptwriter Troy Kennedy Martin provide just enough red herrings (hang on, that driver didn't properly check in!) to keep you in suspense. 

Or maybe just dread. The constant spectre of death hangs over the racers' camaraderie, which Enzo clearly still craves even as he remains apart. The scene before the race begins where the drivers write farewell letters to their loved ones like WWI fighter pilots is moving stuff.

The family dramas are a little more melodramatic (one major plot is Laura slowly figuring out the existence of Lina, then remorselessly tracking her down), but an at times astonishingly raw performance from Cruz more than makes up for it. And while Woodley pales a little by comparison, that feels intentional: in a life that seems constantly on the verge of flying apart, she's what keeps things grounded - for the brief moments Enzo's with her.

Driver plays Enzo as a steely (literally in his grey suits) figure of determination. But there's no fraying around the edges. The control required comes off as second nature. He's got a handle on things, whether selling cars to kings or trading banter at the barbers; now he's pushing them to the limit like he once did on the track. 

Mann's film is full of speed and velocity - the car scenes are white-knuckle visceral - but Ferrari is on a different track. Even when standing still, he's constantly driving himself forward; each victory only sets the stage for the next race.

- Anthony Morris