Spanning the first few decades of the 20th century, “The Color Purple” tells the life story of Celie, played by Phylicia Pearl Mpasi in her youth and R&B singer Fantasia Barrino as an adult. Celie is a young dark-skinned girl who, from the outset, is cursed by an endless procession of abuse and mistreatment. As an adolescent, she is molested and impregnated by the man she believes to be her father. Celie has only two comforts in this world: her sister Nettie (Halle Bailey) and the brief, abstract idea of motherhood. Neither comfort lasts.
First, her children are ripped from her arms, then she is sold into marriage to Mister (Colman Domingo), a scoundrel farmer with his own brood of motherless children. Mister picks up where Celie’s father left off, beating her, using her for sex, and treating her like a slave. In Celie’s absence, Nettie becomes their father’s next target. But after coming to stay with Celie, Nettie rejects similar advances from Mister and is chased off the property in the rain, Celie’s last vestige of love driven out of her life.
The years pass, and Celie’s thankless existence only grows worse. She helps raise Mister’s children, among them his eldest son, Harpo (Corey Hawkins), who elopes with a feisty, free-spirited woman named Sofia (Danielle Brooks). Harpo isn’t as stubborn or malicious as his father and Sofia is nowhere near as subservient as Celie. Seeing this younger generation form a relationship more progressive and tender than their own, Mister and Celie both encourage Harpo to beat his young bride. The former because it’s all he knows, and the latter borne of a wounded jealousy. But seeing Sofia refuse to take that sort of punishment opens Celie’s eyes to the possibilities of a world where she can exist out from under a man’s thumb.
In the aftermath of that epiphany, Celie meets Shug (Taraji P. Henson). She’s a famous singer and Mister’s ex, whom he is still obsessed with. She comes to stay with them, and her presence dulls Mister’s abuse and provides Celie with her first real friend in years. Their relationship has a severe undercurrent of romantic longing and sexual attraction, but it also opens up an important piece of knowledge Mister has hidden from her: that Nettie is still alive and has found Celie’s stolen children. Celie’s journey to be free and reconnect with her family nicely dovetails with the slow evolution of Black life in America, with its trials and tribulations tethered to her own. It is an expansive and difficult story, but not one without its rapturous moments of celebratory reprieve.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN’s National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
