The Color Purple
Warner Bros. | Release Date: December 25, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 49 Critic Reviews
Positive:
34
Mixed:
15
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsJan 26, 2024
Director Blitz Bazawule does well to draw out multifaceted performances from his cast, particularly Barrino and Brooks, and with them the big emotional beats all manage to land well enough. Yet the musical flights of fancy feel creatively bound by the stage adaptation and lack a certain eccentric pizazz. Read full review
60
Time OutPhil de SemlyenJan 25, 2024
It’s far from a ham-fisted, tasteless Bialystocky nightmare. But neither does it avoid some jarring dissonance, as Celie, a young Black woman in 1900s Georgia, goes from a deep personal hell to some hard-won peace via slickly choreographed saloon-bar stompers, banjo-picking blues numbers, and an awkwardly-staged soul ballad framed within an RKO-style dream sequence. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesTara BradyJan 25, 2024
The Spielberg film casts a long shadow over the stage musical, which too often feels like a retread of that film interrupted by songs. The musical number as narrative speed bump is a flaw that carries over to the big screen. Read full review
60
Total FilmLeila LatifJan 22, 2024
The film treads a fine line between saccharine and crowd-pleasing, though there’s no doubt a few moments will elicit tears. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriDec 24, 2023
The Color Purple is not a particularly intimate or introspective musical; its numbers are big, very much meant to be sung to a big audience, maybe even to have the audience sing them back to the stage or the screen. For both movie and play, it feels as much like a trip to church as it is a trip to the theater. Read full review
60
Vanity FairRichard LawsonDec 19, 2023
While grandly moving at the close, too much of this Color Purple relies on memories of Color Purples past. Read full review
60
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonDec 19, 2023
For the first two hours, it’s absorbing: big song-and-dance numbers and emotional set pieces, dynamic performances from everyone, and a feeling of reverence for the story and what it’s meant for 40 years give it gravitas and heart. . . Yet by the end it’s clear that the story remains slippery to would-be adapters. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawDec 19, 2023
This heartfelt movie-musical of The Color Purple sugars the pill and softens the blow, planing down the original’s barbed and knotty surfaces, taking away some of the shock of violence and tragedy and tilting the experience more towards female solidarity and triumph over adversity. Read full review
59
Paste MagazineJesse HassengerDec 19, 2023
The Color Purple is involving on a scene-to-scene basis, but it has a processional quality. Though it’s less constrained than Spielberg’s sometimes sentimentalized version of the material, the new movie isn’t less sentimental – or less thirsty for audience approval. Read full review
55
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzDec 19, 2023
The Color Purple arrives as a confused byproduct of the industry’s best intentions and worst habits.
50
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaDec 20, 2023
The Color Purple strands a passionate cast in a passionless movie musical that’s eager to skip to the end. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineKeith UhlichDec 19, 2023
The film knows the words and tunes but, with rare exception, lacks the passion and the perspective to make them truly resonate. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleCarla MeyerDec 19, 2023
The Color Purple now has been a movie, a Broadway show, a revived Broadway show and movie musical when it always should have been a TV miniseries. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubMurtada ElfadlDec 19, 2023
The Color Purple offers some entertaining moments, however the sum of it is much less than some of its standout parts. Bazawule clearly had a vision in adapting this story once more, and he’s aided by excellent work from cinematographer Dan Lausten and costume designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck, yet that vision never fully coheres. Read full review
40
SlashfilmJosh SpiegelDec 19, 2023
Blitz Bazawule and a cast of talented performers do their best, but the end result just doesn't gel. Read full review
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