Fatimah Ali: In 'For Colored Girls,' cast trumps the grim material

SEVENTY years after Hattie McDaniel became the first black woman to receive an Oscar (for her role as a maid in "Gone With the Wind"), it's incredible that there is still only a very small pool of juicy movie roles for black actresses.

And what's with all of the sad stories that we always seem to portray, when there are also plenty of normal and happy black women to show on the big screen?

I was reminded of that sad truth on a "girlfriends night out" to see Tyler Perry's latest - "For Colored Girls." I realized I might never get another chance to see so many talented black actresses playing in one movie.

By the time I saw Perry's big-screen adaptation of Ntozake Shange's play, "For colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf," I'd read just about every bad review that's out there - and there are many.

Perry's harshest critics say he's made a mess of the melodramatic 1974 Obie-award winning "choreo-poem." I disagree - but not entirely.

What he's done successfully is to gather a stellar cast and show that even the most powerfully uncomfortable scenes can be implied - and don't have to appear in all their graphic and gory detail. But I agree with the critics that Perry demonstrates only brief moments of fluidity in his directing, and the film is far from a brilliant success.

From my perspective, the real reason that "For Colored Girls" can eventually be considered a flop, despite its fabulous cast, is that, as in the original, it's overly ambitious. Shange made the first mistake by staging her poems as a play, covering too broad a range of tragedies in too short a time.

But Perry's casting is phenomenal and features some of my favorites - Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise, Phylicia Rashad and Kerry Washington. Perry is able to draw top-notch talents, even when his scripts aren't worthy, like Cicely Tyson, whom he's cast in small roles in several productions.

Although I have great respect for Shange's artistry, I'd planned to sit this movie out. Who needs a story packed with so many sad themes - and even when I was younger and more adventurous, the play had been too heavy for my brain when I first saw it back in the '70s.

So, I thought, why torment myself again? And just as I did more than 30 years ago, this time I again left the theater with a banging headache.

These days, I prefer to spend my money on art and entertainment that leaves me in a good mood, has excitement, or makes me laugh.

And "For Colored Girls" is no slouch when it comes to doling out the heavy topics: rape, domestic abuse, HIV, teen pregnancy, addiction and heartbreak. To try to tie all of this together is an uphill battle, despite the movie's long running time of 134 minutes.

But even though I'd been so disappointed the first time, I resigned myself to giving the movie a shot for two reasons. One, I was curious about Perry's growth as an artist, and, two, because of the heavyweight cast.

I appreciate that Perry chose the art of suggestion for some of the more brutal scenes instead of showing the stark reality, especially during one of the darkest moments in the film. The scene, involving a dad (played by Michael Ealy) and his two kids, is devastating.

Other story lines are less successful. The one involving the religious fanatic played by Whoopi Goldberg is so totally discombobulating it's almost comedic. But since her character is meant to be seriously insane, the portrayal misfires.

But there are some high points, too. Elise in particular, who plays Crystal, a mother who's viciously abused by her boyfriend (Ealy), suffers an emotional breakdown after enduring an unspeakable tragedy and creates a performance that I believe worthy of an Oscar nomination.

But I still can't help but feeling bewildered at Hollywood's and Perry's insistence that black women's stories must always be tragic and that we're such drama queens. Black women are queens all right, but many of us lead our lives without the negativity drama that we repeatedly see in the movies.

Fatimah Ali is a regular contributor to the Daily News, and blogs about food at healthysoutherncomforts.com.