For Colored Girls

Writer-director Tyler Perry adapts a seminal work of 1970s African American feminism, Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, grafting a plot—or rather, several intertwining plots—onto Shange’s collection of verse monologues while staying faithful to her kaleidoscopic view of what it is to be a “colored girl” in America. Shange’s innately theatrical work melds quite well (though not entirely seamlessly) with Perry’s cinematic approach, aided immensely by the powerhouse cast he assembles to play a cross-section of urban black women: Janet Jackson, Kimberly Elise, Loretta Devine, Kerry Washington, Thandie Newton, Phylicia Rashad, Whoopi Goldberg, Tessa Thompson, Anika Noni Rose. It’s the talented Perry at his best, delivering at last on his promise. Tinseltown. Rated R