For Colored Girls review

I watched this movie from Tyler Perry called “For Colored Girls” and it was probably his better film. Of course that’s not really saying much since all of Tyler Perry’s movies are shit and this was just a step above shit which is crap. So “For Colored Girls” is crap. I wish it wasn’t. I wish it was something worthy of the style in which he tried to present it. Tyler, unfortunately, doesn’t know how to be a filmmaker. His problem is that he thinks films and plays are the same, but he needs to learn that they are two different arts.

So here’s what he tried to do: he took some well written poems and tried to tell dramatic stories around them. He incorporated the poems into the screenplay and tried to make it work as dialog, much like music in musicals work when a song tells the story in place of dialog. It’s a clever conception; unfortunately Mr. Perry isn’t a clever enough filmmaker to make this work.

The problem with Mr. Perry’s movies is, sadly, his directing. He has a great vision for what he wants to do, but misses by that much when it comes through as a completed film. It’s one thing to see something and think “I would like to do that for my film.” But if you don’t know the purpose for doing it then the effect doesn’t work.

Take the opening shots for example. The camera follows one of main characters kicking out one of her (many) men and we follow him out the building where the camera stops to introduce another main character. The camera then follows that character back into the building and we get her story going and eventually we follow that character out the building where we are introduced to another character coming into the building and then we follow her.

The style in which Mr. Perry uses isn't bad, however, he immediately over uses the style. We have seen this style of camera movement before in films and there is a trick to pulling this off seamlessly. Tyler Perry should have only done that move once, in the opening to introduce one character, but he did twice and that immediately bored the viewer because the magic of how effective that filming technique has been over used and it was no longer creative.

The average person might not have noticed that, but a film critic would. I don’t want to sound like I’m talking out my ass here, but I love film art. I don’t watch movies just for entertainment, but for the art of filmmaking. Which is why things like this catch my eye. Trust me, every shot in a film is thought out like a math problem. That shot alone probably too three hours to a day to set up, about 10 people behind the camera to make sure everything worked on time and about three or four or more takes before they got to what was in the film. So if you think I’m being nick picky about that one shot, you don’t know film art.

Now, back to the poems being dialog. This was not a terrible idea, if this was a play. In a play you are allowed to be over dramatic and theatrical, which is what happens when you put poetry in the dialog. But the beauty of film dialog is to be real. Film, whether fact or fiction, is supposed to give the illusion of us peaking in on this characters lives as if this was happening. We are supposed to see these lives as we see our own. People are supposed to talk and act as we do in real life, in some way, shape or form.

This is why we except animals as humans who speak English. We create something that is like us making it easier for us to connect to it and view it as something from us. Musicals work in this form because music is something we all can relate too. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you listen to, music is easier to pass off dialog because we all have a musical soundtrack to our lives.

The music you listen too relates to you in your life. I’m sure at some point in your life, whether it was walking to school listening to your headphones or at home doing the dishes with the radio playing, you felt that sense that a song was saying what you were feeling or what was happening. If you’re in love and a beautiful love song comes on you’re probably going to feel as if your world is being narrated by that song.

This does not work with a poem because everyone doesn’t like poems and certainly people don’t walk around as if a poem is narrating their lives. Some might, but chances are they are probably poets. So to replace dialog with poems in a film does not come across well. Mr. Perry would have been better with just making a less dramatic film inspired by the poem, not lead by them.

Mr. Perry needs to work on ending his films on more realistic notes as well. This movie ended with two women in a strained relationship with their mother, a successful woman with HIV from her undercover-brother husband (over the fucking top there), a rape victim, and a woman in mourning over the lost of her two children who were murdered by her abusive husband—all on a rooftop celebrating as if a tragedy never happened. I know the point is supposed to be, “Life goes on,” but does not like this.

The problem I have with this ending is that it’s generic. Very generic and unrealistic and it doesn’t fit the story. Tyler Perry always tries to wrap up over dramatic movies on a romantic comedy note and you just can’t do that. You can’t fill a movie with 90 minutes of crying, sadness and drama and spend the last 5 minutes as if life is just so sweet, even with all our horrible troubles. Yeah right!

So Mr. Perry, you are getting better, but you have so much to learn. You need to learn how to balance drama with comedy with a happy ending. Learn and understand what it means to make a movie and deliver on completing the journey. You are very lazy in your attempt to make something beautiful by coping what every other film does without understanding the motives. Find your identity and go with it. Learn to be original, because right not you are a half-assed imitation of a true filmmaker.