For Colored Girls

For Colored Girls is an ambitious and distressing tale of race, womanhood and of shaken-up domesticity. Written, produced and directed by Madea-creator Tyler Perry, the film is a female-led ensemble piece based on the Tony-nominated 1975 play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf" by Ntozake Shange.

Perry's big-screen adaptation deals with several interweaving storylines, each loosely linked to one another through the relationships between their nine central female characters. Rendering the film a tad overlong, we jump from one emotionally chilling subplot to the next, each given an appropriate amount of screen-time by Perry to fully develop the large assortment of characters.

Toying with many controversial themes, the film is host to an almost all-star cast that is thankfully on spectacular form. From acting veterans to fresh-faced rising stars, Robi Reed-Humes and Alpha Tyler both deserve a pat on the back for casting such marvelously suitable actors and actresses for the roles they play. And now I'm going to attempt to describe each of the interconnected characters in sufficient enough detail. Wish me luck.

First up is Janet Jackson, who does a fascinating job of looking and sounding exactly like her moonwalking late brother. I jest, I jest. She plays Jo, the uptight editor of Robe Rouge magazine, her heart cold and her arrogance high. Her husband, Carl (Kick-Ass' Omari Hardwick), has stolen money from her, and their relationship has recently grown distant, raising some sneaking suspicions from the fashion-mag boss.

Her assistant, Crystal (Diary of a Mad Black Woman's Kimberly Elise), is a mother of two who suffers at the hands of her abusive, war-veteran partner's savage behaviour and untamed, tough-guy attitude. "I've loved you since we were 14 years old," she says to partner Beau (Takers' Michael Ealy), recalling the better times they once shared. Neglecting his medication, the disturbed paranoid's unsettled demeanour soon leads to some discomforting tragedy.

Playing the troubled couple's next-door neighbour, Tangie, is Crash's Thandie Newton. A promiscuous bartender, Tangie sleeps with any man she can wrap her scantily-clad legs around. "I'm one that likes to fuck," she tells one of her horny pick-ups after he confuses her for a prostitute, offering her money while she lays atop him on her bed.

Tangie's mother, portrayed by Oscar-winner Whoopi Goldberg, is a religious fanatic who's part of what her libertine daughter calls a "cult." Living with her is Tangie's sister, Nyla (When a Stranger Calls' Tessa Thompson), a dancer and college applicant who is shocked to find that she is pregnant, taking drastic actions to rid of what she sees as a problem.

The landlord whose door stands between Crystal's and Tangie's is Gilda, played by Just Wright's Phylicia Rashad. Just over the middle-age mark, the wise and caring Gilda hears through the walls the violence that occurs in Crystal's apartment, and watches as men come and go to use Tangie's free "services".

Anika Noni Rose (The Princess and the Frog) plays Yasmine, the smiling 30-something dance teacher of Nyla. She seems rather happy with her charming new boyfriend, Bill (Juice's Khalil Kain), a well-dressed smoothie who takes her out to fancy restaurants and leaves flowers on her doorstep. All seems fine for the gleefully happy daters until one night when things take an unexpectedly shocking and sinister turn. This, in particular, caught me off guard.

Loretta Devine (I Am Sam) is Juanita, a lively, condom-dispensing nurse whose cheating spouse, Frank (Richard Lawson), wanders off from time to time without due warning. Whenever she comes home to find Frank gone, she worriedly checks her bedroom drawers to see if his clothes are still there. Devine being an extraordinarily likable actress, Juanita is perhaps the most naturally sympathetic character along with the soon-traumatised Yasmine.

And finally we have Kerry Washington (Ray) as Kelly, a social worker who we meet when she visits Crystal's apartment to analyse the conditions the two toddlers are living in. Her husband is a cop (CSI: NY's Hill Harper), and she has recently found out that she has an STD, resulting in her inability to carry a child within her womb.

Phew. With so many characters contained within the much-threaded plot, For Colored Girls can get a little muddled at times, resulting in the occasional confusion from me as I pondered how different events were connected to one another. Nevertheless, each story is powerful, and the movie has something to say in each and every one of them.

The film comes across very much as (suitably) reminiscent to a play -- a scene in which Juanita rants through the closed door of Frank's apartment is a sequence that is straight out of a stage production. Characters begin preaching heartfelt speeches, some more soaked in the tears of melodrama than others, that all polish the film with a shining sense of importance and an ambience of classiness amongst the Harlem setting.

Putting expository dialogue aside, Perry's script is a relatively solid one that allows for us to connect with these loosely associated characters. They are all pictures of unnerving tribulations, dealing with similar themes of abortion, rape, love, infidelity, and domestic abuse. All characterised with dreary realism, they give the film a heavy weight that Perry's writing manages to carry much more often than not.

With each cast member utterly stellar and the characters all perfectly fleshed out, For Colored Girls is a touching portrait of the harshly drawn lives of African American women who are going through despair in everyday USA. Bleak and respectably unflinching, it only feels odd when characters begin speaking in emotional monologues, reciting off-the-top-of-the-head poems out of practically nowhere, which does seem out-of-place within the film's fearless tone. Not just for "colored girls", but for most moviegoers who can stomach some shocking subject matter.

7/10