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What it's about:
In 1974, Ntozake Shange's choreopoem "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow Is Enuf" made its stage debut, combining poetry, dance and music, and, most significantly, placing the black female experience center stage.
In lyrical, honest, angry, funny and tender language, Shange's coloured girls evoked the feelings woven into the fabric of black female life in America. Within two years, the play became a Broadway sensation, won an Obie and Tony Award, and would eventually be produced in regional theaters throughout the country.
Now, 36 years later, this film integrates the vivid language of Shange's poems into a contemporary narrative that explores what it means to be a woman of colour, any colour, in this world.
What the critics thought:
"For Colored Girls is so shamelessly terrible it would make a great midnight hoot-fest, if you had the stomach to laugh at Shange or some of the best (and most underused) actresses of their generation..."
- David Edelstein, New York Magazine
"Director Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls is a bold example of an artist's reach exceeding his grasp. And it's hard not to applaud his determination and grade for ambition."
- Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post
"Ham-handed, obvious, overblown and pretentious, For Colored Girls is a plain disaster."
- Tom Long, Detroit News
In 1974, Ntozake Shange's choreopoem "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow Is Enuf" made its stage debut, combining poetry, dance and music, and, most significantly, placing the black female experience center stage.
In lyrical, honest, angry, funny and tender language, Shange's coloured girls evoked the feelings woven into the fabric of black female life in America. Within two years, the play became a Broadway sensation, won an Obie and Tony Award, and would eventually be produced in regional theaters throughout the country.
Now, 36 years later, this film integrates the vivid language of Shange's poems into a contemporary narrative that explores what it means to be a woman of colour, any colour, in this world.
What the critics thought:
"For Colored Girls is so shamelessly terrible it would make a great midnight hoot-fest, if you had the stomach to laugh at Shange or some of the best (and most underused) actresses of their generation..."
- David Edelstein, New York Magazine
"Director Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls is a bold example of an artist's reach exceeding his grasp. And it's hard not to applaud his determination and grade for ambition."
- Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post
"Ham-handed, obvious, overblown and pretentious, For Colored Girls is a plain disaster."
- Tom Long, Detroit News
