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"Enuf" is Enough

"For Colored Girls" is not for the faint of heart. It's not a feel-good movie. You won't leave the theater with warm fuzzies. Tyler Perry adapted the celebrated play for the screen, then directed and produced, as well.  He pulls no punches in telling the stories of black American women as each experiences heartache and tragedy. Unfortunately, drama becomes melodrama under Perry's heavy hand, leaving the viewer with something too overwrought to take at all seriously.

The story follows eight women, not all of them known to one another at the outset, though their stories do all ultimately entwine and overlap. From infidelity to rape, unwanted pregnancies to murder, they all have their fair share of tragedy. The ensemble cast has talent to spare - Kimberly Elise, Kerry Washington, Phylicia Rashad, Thandie Newton... The list goes on. But under Mr. Perry's direction, the characters are too much caricature to be real. Janet Jackson's magazine editor, for example, is basically a harsher, darker skinned Miranda Priestly, plucked right out of "The Devil Wears Prada," while Whoopi Goldberg's religious hoarder is so crazy that it's difficult to understand how she fits into anyone's story at all.

The award-winning play on which the movie is based has the much longer name "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf." By Ntozake Shange, it is part poem, part prose and part dance. As such, some of the dialog is almost lyrical. It's a shame, then, that between extreme closeups, histrionics and tears (oh the tears!), the audience is bludgeoned with its importance.

Make no mistake: this is heavy material. But it's heavy on its own. It needs no help to make it more impactful. The points of the film that should have been the most poignant and intense elicited more laughter from the audience than tears, which is telling. The emotional pacing is entirely off, the end product too over the top to be authentic.

This movie wants to be a serious commentary about the African-American experience. It wants to be "Steel Magnolias," set in Harlem and with harsher realities. Instead (or perhaps because of that), it ends up playing out more like R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet." Just when it seems like there will be an end to the despair, the other shoe drops - and in this case, there are four or five shoes. With a running time of over two hours, it'll have you crying "Enuf!"