Starring: Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo, Corey Hawkins, Taraji P. Henson, H.E.R, Halle Bailey, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Phylicia Pearl Mpasi
OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆
Story:
Musical period drama directed by Blitz Bazawule and produced by Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Scott Sanders, and Quincy Jones. The Color Purple (2023) centers on the life-long struggles of Celie (Fantasia Barrino), an African-American woman living in the south during the early 1900s.
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Best Quotes
Celie: [referring to Alfonso] You think he killing my babies?
Young Nettie: I believe he give them to God, just like he say.
Celie: But they mine. How come God don’t give them back?
Young Nettie: I’m a tomboy, and I likes to climb trees. I got corns, bunions and blisters. Ain’t nothing pretty about my feet. Now leave me be.
Mister: I wants to ask for your Nettie’s hand. Needs me a wife.
Alfonso: You going to need more than that from what I hear.
Alfonso: [to Mister] I’ll let you have Celie though, for a cow and a couple of eggs. She ugly as homemade sin, but will work hard like a man.
Celie: Who that outside talking to Pa?
Young Nettie: The devil. He followed me home from school today, and now I can’t get rid of him.
Celie: He sure look nice for a devil.
'Devil always look nice till he start raising hell.' - Young Nettie (The Color Purple) Click To Tweet
Celie: What’s a loose woman?
Young Nettie: A woman who won’t let no one man tie her down, I suppose.
Celie: That sounds nice. I wants to be a loose woman.
Young Nettie: No, you don’t.
Young Nettie: Today, our teacher taught us about a place called Africa. She say that’s where our peoples is from.
Celie: Ah-free-ka.
Young Nettie: She say our mommas come from queens over there. You know what that means? That means that we royalty.
Alfonso: Pack your things, Celie. Time for you to leave. You marrying Mister.
Celie: Who Mister?
Young Nettie: The devil.
Young Nettie: [to Celie] Don’t let him walk all over you, hear? You keep your head held high. Just like Mama taught us.
Young Nettie: Even if we have to part, you and me…
Celie, Young Nettie: Us have one heart.
Mister: Whatever I say, go.
Celie: [after Mister throws Nettie out] Nettie! Write me!
Young Nettie: I’ll write you every day. Nothing but death can keep me from it.
Mister: Get off my land! You ain’t never going to hear from her again. She come back here again, I’ll kill you both. You hear? I’ll kill you dead!
Harpo: I’m going to put my foot down!
Sofia: What that foot supposed to do, Harpo? I bet it won’t walk over me.
Big Slim: [as Sofia enters the bar] What’s wrong with you, gal? Can’t you read?
Sofia: “No fighting. No killing. No women.” Whoo-hoo! Yeah, I read what pleases me.
Harpo: This here’s Sofia.
Ol’ Mister: That’s a lot of woman.
Mister: Whose kin are you, gal? You seem like trouble.
Sofia: Oh, no, sir. I’m one of Argus Butler’s daughters. No trouble at all. Just big.
'I think it pi**es God off if you walk past the color purple and not notice it.' - Shug Avery (The Color Purple) Click To Tweet
Mister: I ain’t going to let you marry my son because you in the family way. Pretty gal like you can take his mind, but you can’t have his money.
Sofia: He ain’t got no money.
Sofia: Now, I come here out of respect. But if there ain’t none to get, there sure ain’t none to give.
Mister: Boy, you carrying your brains in your back pocket? You can’t build no house on no swampland. If you were smart, you’d use it to plant rice.
Harpo: Well, maybe I ain’t smart.
Mister: That’s the wisest thing you done ever said.
Celie: Who that singing?
Mister: That’s Shug, the woman I should’ve married.
Sofia: How come you so nice when the rest of Harpo’s kin so mean and surly?
Celie: I don’t know. I figure if I…
Sofia: Maybe you too nice.
Sofia: You must ain’t got no kinfolkround these parts.
Celie: Only kinfolk I had was my sister. And I ain’t seen her in years.
Sofia: That’s sad.
Celie: Every woman ain’t the same.
Harpo: [referring to Sofia] I wants her to jump when I say.
Celie: Maybe she ain’t a jumping woman.
Sofia: You told Harpo to beat me?
Celie: No, ma’am.
Sofia: You’s a damn liar.
Celie: I didn’t mean it.
Sofia: Then why did you fix your mouth to say it then?
Celie: I say it because I jealous of you. You do what I can’t. You fight.
'When you love what God has made, you is loving God and God is loving you.' - Shug Avery (The Color Purple) Click To Tweet
Sofia: I loves Harpo. God knows I do. But I’ll kill him dead before I let him or anybody beat me.
Mister: Some women you just can’t tame.
Mister: Don’t nobody want to dance by no smelly swamp.
Harpo: Right.
Celie: Not unless Shug Avery singing.
Shug Avery: How long you and Albert been a thing?
Celie: Albert?
Shug Avery: Your husband. You trying to tell me you don’t know your own husband’s name?
Celie: I thought his name was Mister.
Shug Avery: Mister ain’t no name. It’s a title. Just another way of saying “master”, if you ask me. That man can’t even stand up to his own daddy, but got everybody calling him “Mister” like he the only one in town.
Shug Avery: [to Celie] How come you don’t laugh none? You know, if you ain’t going to laugh, you need to sell your funny bone. Smile. It’s healthy. Ain’t you got something to make you hop out of bed every morning and just smile?
Shug Avery: He don’t want to see me. He ain’t forgave me for choosing the blues over his religion. Funny thing is, God ain’t never left me. I figure, if God understands why I sings the blues, then maybe one day my pa will.
'Everything done to me, already done to you.' - Celie (The Color Purple) Click To Tweet
Shug Avery: [to Celie] Let’s see this smile in color. Ooh, sweet and loving God! Now we’re talking.
Shug Avery: You see, I think it pi**es God off if you walk past the color purple and not notice it.
Celie: You saying God wants to be loved like it say in the Bible?
Shug Avery: Oh, everything and everybody wants to be loved. Especially God. That’s why God be in everything. And see, when you love what God has made, you is loving God and God is loving you.
Celie: I been wondering, if God love me, then why he take my babies? And why he take my Nettie?
Shug Avery: Sound like men did that. Not God.
Celie: [referring to the dress] Oh, that’s fancy. But this ain’t me.
Shug Avery: Hush. Put it on. You going to be my guest tonight. We need to look like we belong.