The Color Purple, movie directed by Steven Spielberg, based on novel by Alice Walker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_Purple I expected to see a movie about the Gullah people of the Southern USA when I stepped out, but the Village Center said The Color Purple had been substituted instead. Since it is a very famous novel I decided to watch. But I found the movie confusing. First, I did not understand that the man who took the baby was Celie's father, and that he had raped and impregnated his daughter. 2 children are compacted into one birth scene-- The incest is not apparent in the movie at all, nor was I sure that Nettie and Celie were sisters. The "subsititution" when the actress playing Celie as a teenager was replaced suddenly in voiceover off screen by an older and wiser/narrator played by Whoopi Goldberg (very well) was jaring,partly because Whoopi is so good. Also, the two women did not look alike at all and it took a few seconds to figure out she was grown up Celie. One of my writing mentors used to say, "You should never have to puzzle things out. It takes you out of the story." I wasn't aware that the white man who came to see Mister (played by Danny Glover) was Mister's father--how could that be? White man. I thought it was his landlord, or the landowner. Was he a tenant farmer? Why did Celie spat into his water glass. It's never clear how Mister manages to make a living, farming? Glover plays a convincing son of a bitch, but the movie seems unclear whether it wishes to be a. about the black experience b. a sista story c. a homosexual story d. a bad black man women's rights story. And the famous people with the exception of brilliant Whoopi, seem to be prancing about playing caricatures of themselves. At times it looks like a spoof, not a serious movie. With the exception of Goldberg, the acting was not that great. I liked the screenplay and book of 12 Years a Slave much better, and I liked Free State of Jones and Lincoln much better than Purple. I also liked the Malcolm X movie years ago, in fact I loved it. If it's a Dickens type story, it should be bleaker and sadder, not with flowers and a house with red geraniums, and all the cute cute sister stuff. My experience is blood sisters usually do not love each other. If they do, the reason should have been better shown,e.g. was Celie afraid Nettie would be raped by their father too--come to think of it, why did Nettie suddenly show up at Celie's, and why did Mister throw her out--because she taught Celie how to read? I thought he had the hots for Nettie from the start. How come Nettie knew how to read and Celie did not> Mister as played by Glover is inexplicable and shallow, maybe purposely so. I have to admit I came out after the Shug nightclub scene and Celie and Shug getting romantic, (where was Mister and the dozen children??) Suddenly, the videotape stopped, and the technician was attempting to fix it when I decided to step out. I hope the novel is better. K M Kaung 2-15-2018 PS, when I first arrived in the USA my Egyptian friend stepped out of an opera by Francis Ford Coppula, Don Juan/Giovanni, with Keri Te Kanawa based on the Mozart opera, but then lots of people don't understand opera. . I stepped out of Mel Gibson? playing Jesus, because it was so gory, but outside, I saw some Ethiopian students who stepped out because they were offended. I have not stepped out of any other movies, except a porn movie wh my Philippine friend and I went into by mistake, we stepped out immediately after the opening scene. It was in North Philadelphia. --