Shug like honey...
...and now, I's just like a bee.
I's follow her everywhere, want to go where she go.
What life like for her? And why she sometime get so sad?
So sad, just like me.
How you been?
I been sick. Maybe you heard.
But I feels better now. I been staying with Albert and Celie.
They been taking care of me.
Place bring back memories.
I used to stand right over there watching you.
Best preacher in the world.
The way you make your voice rise and fall when you turn a phrase.
The way you looked in your blue suit. Girls cutting their eyes at you.
Something to see.
You'd smile at us and say...
"Ladies...
...God is trying to tell you something, if you please."
And we sang.
We sang our hearts out.
I couldn't sleep at night.
And I was wondering why.
It's all right.
I know you can't say nothing to me anymore because things are so different.
Just thought I'd stop and say hello.
Shug say she going back to Memphis.
I'm gonna go with her. This is my only chance to break from Mr. Jail.
What you doing?
Nothing.
It don't look like that to me.
I need you to sit on my suitcase.
On your way.
There something you got to say?
What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?
Don't be scared.
I's going to miss you.
I's going to miss you, too.
Let's go!
Hey, Shug! Write!
Do good in Chicago, Shug!
Honey, let me see you. Look at you, you're so sweet.
Leave them folks alone.
Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor.
Look at that little face. That's the cutest little face I ever saw.
Millie, always going on over the colored.
Your children are so clean.
Would you like to work for me? Be my maid?
Hell, no.
What did you say?
Hell, no.
What did she say?
Can't you pump that a little faster?
Gal, what did you say to Miss Millie?
I said, "Hell--
No, Miss Sofia!
I can't believe you did that!
Get my children out of here! Take them home!
Get my children out of here!
Who do you think you are?!
Don't touch me! Leave me alone! Don't touch me!
You fat nigger!
God, dear God! Sheriff, help me!
Howdy, Mayor.
How are you?
Fine.
-How's the missus? -She's doing real well.
Let's see what we have here.
I'm driving!
I'm driving.
Look, I'm driving!
Isn't that fun!
Dear God...
...after many years, they let Sofia out of jail...
...just to put her in the next.
She had to be Miss Millie's maid after all.
Mayor bought Miss Millie a car, and she had Sofia teach her how to drive.
Poor Sofia, stuck with Miss Millie...
...for the rest of her life.
We went past the store.
I've got it. Top of the 'H'. Here we go.
That was exciting, wasn't it?
Yes, ma'am, I reckon it was.
Let's do the shopping!
I need apples, raisins, cinnamon, currants, lemons...
...crackers, sugar, oranges, nutmeg, flour, salt, pepper...
...cloves, eggs, and some candy for the children.
I've been wondering about us starting a fund for the poor colored children.
Sofia's been teaching me to drive.
Have you ever thought about going to Mars?
I wonder what it's like.
They call it the red planet. Does it look red?
How do, Mr. Peters? Look at me, I'm driving.
Sofia, I'm gonna drive you home tomorrow.
Did you hear what I said? I'm gonna drive you home.
Home?
Yes, home.
You haven't seen your children in a while.
No, I ain't seen them in about 8 years.
That's a shame.
Tomorrow's Christmas! You can stay all day!
You can stay all day.
I will drive myself back.
Thank you.
That's your mama.
That's her.
Go on.
Hi, my name is Emma.
I'm very pleased to meet you.
I'll pick you up at 5:00.
Oh, Miss Sofia, it's so good to have you home.
Why you cry?
'Cause I don't know y'all no more.
I can do it. I can put this thing in reverse.
I can make it go the right way.
She can't get it out of reverse.
You get away from me! Don't touch me!
Don't you know who I am?!
I've always been good to you people!
Calm down.
I am Miss Millie! I'm the mayor's wife!
I've always been good to you.
I've always gone out of my way for coloreds!
Miss Millie, what's the matter?
Those boys...
...tried to attack me.
No such a thing.
How could you leave me alone for so long?
What am I gonna do about the car?
Jack will drive you home, Miss Millie.
I can't ride in a car with some strange colored man.
I'll ask my sister Odessa to squeeze in.
That way I have more time with my children.
I don't know her either.
It's Shug.
Hot diggidy-dog!
I'm coming, Shug!
It's sugarbaby!
I've heard so much about you! Feels like we old friends!
This Grady.
This my husband.
Us been driving all night.
No place to stop. But here us is! Well, how are you?
We're fine.
Got colds, though.
This here's my wedding present. Brand new.
I want Albert to learn how to drive it.
Grady drive like a fool. I thought the police would get us.
Us two married ladies now. Two married ladies, and hungry!
What us got to eat?
Yeah, you know, Grady, we done had the best.
Yeah, we done had the best.
You had her your way. I had her mine.
But we had her!
I'll get my mail. I'm expecting an agreement from Memphis.
You ought to wait for Mister.
If I was to wait for Albert, I'd wait till Christmas.
I's married now!
I said I's married now.
Well, let's toast it at somebody.
All the evil, and all the love.
Come upstairs with me.
I got to finish stuffing the turkey.
"April 18th...
...1935.
Dear Celie:
I know you think I'm dead...
...but I am not.
I've been writing to you over the years...
...but Albert said you'd never hear from me again...
...and since I never heard from you all this time...
...l guess he was right.
Now I only write at Christmas and Easter...
...hoping my letters get lost among the Christmas and Easter greetings...
...or that Albert get the holiday spirit and have pity on us.
There is so much to tell you...
...l hardly know where to begin.
And anyway, you probably won't get this letter either.
I am sure Albert is still the only one...
...to take the mail out of the box.
But if this does not get through...
...one thing I want you to know...
...l love you...
...and I'm not dead."
"I love you and am not dead."
"The lady you met in town is named Corrine.
Her husband name Samuel.
Sanctified religious and very good to me.
They only sorrow in the beginning was...
...that they could not have children.
Then they say...
...God sent them Olivia...
...and Adam.
Yes, their children sent by God are your children.
And they have been brought up in love.
And now God has sent me to watch over them...
...to protect and cherish them...
...to lavish all the love I feel for you on them.
It's a miracle, isn't it?
And no doubt impossible for you to believe.
Olivia and Adam are with me...
...all growing up together...
...a family.
Your loving sister, Nettie."
I got two children...
...and they's alive.
Hear that Miss Shug?
Olivia...and Adam.
And they's alive.
I's getting real tired of this cat.
He coming back soon.
You crazy? He in the jook joint.
This doesn't look nothing like me.
Damn him.
There's so many of them.
What us gonna do?
Go to my room and put them in order by the postmark.
"Dear Celie, the reason why I am in Africa is because...
...the missionary who was supposed to go with Corrine and Samuel...
...to help with the children and set up the school...
...suddenly married a man, and I came in her place."
I wrote a letter to you almost every day on the ship.
On my first sight of the Africa coast...
...something struck in my soul, like a large bell.
I just vibrated.
It has been a long time since I had time to write, but always...
...no matter what I'm doing, I'm writing you. Dear--
Celie! Bring me a cool drink.
Olinka is 4 days march through the bush from the harbor.
Do you know what a jungle is?
Trees and trees and more trees on top of that.
They are so big, they look like they were built.
And vines and ferns and animals and noises...
...that make you wonder what is lurking behind the shadows...
...of every bush.
We're up at 5:00...
...for a breakfast of millet and fruit, then morning classes.
We teach the children English, reading, writing...
...history, geography, arithmetic and Bible stories.
The older children are used to going to mission school.
The smaller ones are not.
Their mothers drag them here screaming and kicking.
They're all boys. Olivia's the only girl.
There is a little African girl called Tashi.
She plays with Olivia.
"Why can't Tashi come to school?" she asked.
I told her the Olinka don't believe in educating girls.
She said, quick as a flash:
"Like white people at home who won't let black people learn."
She is sharp, Celie.
When Tashi can get away from her chores...
...she and Olivia hide in my hut.
To Olivia right now, Tashi alone is Africa....
Everything she learns, she shares with Tashi. Sound familiar?
At first, there was the faintest sound of movement in the forest.
A kind of low humming. Then chopping and the sound of dragging.
Then the scent. Some days there's smoke.
Now, after 2 months during which I or the children...
...or Corrine has been sick...
...all we hear is chopping and scrapping and dragging.
Every day we smell smoke.
Today a boy in my afternoon class burst out as he entered...
"The road approaches!"
Dear Celie, the white man is building a road.
It reached the casava fields 9 months ago.
The morning after, the road was done as far as Olinka was concerned.
But we discovered that the road builders were back.
They have instructions to continue the road for another 30 miles...
...and continue it right through the village of Olinka.
The road builders didn't deviate an inch from the head man's plan.
Every hut that lay in the road's path...
...was leveled.
Celie, our church, our school...
...my hut...
...went down in a matter of hours.
But the worst is yet to be told.
Sweet Corrine... died from fever and grief.
We buried her in the Olinka way.
But Celie, my dear sweet sister...
...we'll all be coming home once we work something out with U.S. Immigration.
They don't know if we're American, African, or missionary.
Just pray for us, Celie.
Watch for me in the sunset.
What's with you?! I was calling you for an hour!
Now get my shave and don't keep me waiting!
-Where's Celie? -Home fixing to shave Mr.
You got a fever? I didn't come here for you to take all day to shave me.
Get the molasses out your ass!
The longer I'm married to you, the slower and dumber you get.
Your ass as slow as I ever seen it before.
Celie! Ain't that razor sharpened yet?!
Get out here and do me right now! Get out here!
All right.
Put your head back.
Cut my neck and I'll get you by the ears.
That razor look dull to me, Miss Celie.
Damn women.
How you feeling, Miss Sofia?
Confused.
Ain't you glad to be home?
Maybe.
Now come the time for me to tell you.
It's time for us to go.
You're such good people. Salt of the earth.
It's time to move on.
Celie is coming with us.
Celie is coming to Memphis with us.
Over my dead body.
You satisfied that's what you want?
Now what's wrong with you?
You a lowdown, dirty dog, that's what's wrong.
It's time for me to get away from you...
...and enter Creation.
Your dead body be the welcome mat I need.
You can't talk to my boy that way.
Your boy.
If he hadn't been your boy he might have been a halfway decent man.
Say what?
You took my sister Nettie away from me.
You knew she was the only person in the world who loved me.
But Nettie and my kids are coming home soon.
And when we get together, we're going to whip your ass.
Nettie and your kids? Woman, you talking crazy.
I got children. My children are living in Africa.
Africa! Learning different languages.
Fresh air, plenty of exercise.
They'll turn out better than these fools you never tried to raise.
-Hold on here! -No hold on, Harpo.
If you hadn't ruled over Sofia, white folks wouldn't have got her.
-That's a lie! -And a little truth.
You all was rotten kids. You was. You was rotten kids!
Made my life hell.
Your daddy ain't nothing but some dead horseshit.
Shut up!
It's bad luck women laughing at a man.
My God the dead has arisen.
I had enough bad luck to keep me laughing the rest of my life.
Sitting in that jail, I near about done rot to death.
I know what it like, Miss Celie.
Want to go somewhere and can't.
I know what it like to want to sing and have it beat out of you.
I want to thank you, Miss Celie...
...for everything you done for me.
I remember the day I was in the store with Miss Millie.
I was feeling real down. I was feeling mighty bad.
And when I see'd you...
...l knowed there is a God.
I knowed there is a God, and one day I was going to get to come home.
You won't get a penny of my money. Not one thin dime!
Did I ever ask you for anything?
Did I ask for your sorry-ass hand in marriage?!
I never asked you for nothing!
Old Sofia home now. Sofia home.
Things are going to change here.
I'm going with Shug.
You going where?
With Miss Celie and Shug.
I'm fixing to sing.
Too much racket going on. Pass me the peas.
Listen, Squeak--
My name ain't Squeak.
My name is Mary Agnes.
Mary Agnes.
I thought it was Squeak.
Who cares? Boy, you going to let this nappy-head gal...
...cuss you out? You're at the head of your own table...
...and you acting like a waiter!
Hush, you old fool! Always meddling in somebody's business.
She'll be back. Shug got talent. She can sing.
She got spunk and can talk to anybody. She can stand up and be noticed.
What you got?
You're ugly. You're skinny. You're shaped funny.
You're too scared to open your mouth to people.
All you fit to do is be Shug's maid.
Albert, no.
Take out her slop jar, maybe cook her food. You ain't that good a cook.
She's a lot better than that first wife of yours.
This house ain't been cleaned good since my first wife died.
Nobody's crazy enough to marry you.
So what will you do? Hire yourself to farm?
Maybe someone will let you work on their railroad.
Maybe sweep out the caboose.
Any more letters come?
Could be. Could be not. Who's to say?
I curse you. Until you do right by me...
...everything you think about...
...will crumble!
Don't do it.
Don't trade places with what I been through.
Come on, Miss Celie. Let's go to the car.
He ain't worth it.
Who you think you is?
You can't curse nobody. Look at you!
You're black, you're poor, you're ugly, you're a woman! You're nothing!
Until you do right by me, everything you even think about will fail!
It's been a pleasure meeting all of you. Good-bye.
I came back just in time.
We need some stability around here, that's for sure.
I should have locked you up!
Just let you out to work!
The jail you planned for me is the one you'll rot in.
Celie, get in the car.
Everything you done to me...
...is already done to you.
I'm poor...black.
I may even be ugly.
But dear God, I'm here!
I'm here!
But you'll be back!
What are you going to do? You'll be back!
Boy, what's the matter with you?
This house is a wreck!
Been drinking.
You want some supper?
I hear you been spending more time at Harpo's and less in the fields.
I guess I just raised you wrong.
How's that, Pa?
The fields overgrown, the animals ain't tended to...
...this house is a wreck.
And what you doing about it? Nothing.
Just sitting here drinking, ruining your life.
My life already ruined.
This house is dead. There's no Shug, no children...
...no laughter and no life. Just me.
I ain't heard such nonsense in all my life.
Now listen to me. I know just what you need.
We need you a woman.
Nice little girl clean the house, iron your shirts--
'Bye, Pa.
You listen to what I say.
Get yourself a young girl. Heed your daddy's advice.
Get these chickens in the coop...
...before they lay eggs all over the place.
It's time to go now. Time to go home.
You know I won't dance.
I move good for an old man.
Come on, time to go. Time to go now. Come on!
I got some Tennessee tobacco ...cured with whiskey.
You know I don't smoke.
Time to go!
That's right. Time to go now.
Time to go.
Time to go!
It sure is nice...
...to see you two together again.
Maybe you should see him home.
He'll be just fine.
Just fine.
Dear God, after all these years...
...the man I knew as my pa is dead.
But then, Nettie write that my real daddy lynched.
My mama marry this dead man two years after my real daddy dead.
My children not my sister and brother.
Pa not Pa.
You his wife?
Yes, ma'am.
How'd he die?
On top of me.
It's all yours now.
Yeah, but I still don't understand how.
Your real daddy owned this land and the house and the store.
He left it to your mama.
When your mama died, it passed on to you and your sister Nettie.
He left me the money, though.
Well, if you'll excuse us, we got a train to catch.
I never figured I'd wear pants. Not of all the things Miss Celie made.
What do you think?
Sofia, Sofia. That sure is a pretty name.
How can a pair of pants that fits Sofia fit me?
You're just going to have to try them on.
It's just like my sign say:
"One size fits all."
Try them on and you'll see.
Sure enough?
Close that curtain.
I don't want you showing Emma all your business.
He hasn't changed a lick.
This fabric's from Washington. I'll make you a pair of pants.
Miss Celie, you is a miracle!
Where will you wear them britches?
Nowhere.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Me and Shug, I smile.
But us still longing.
More than anything, God love admiration.
You saying God is vain?
No, not vain. Just wanting to share a good thing.
I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple...
...in a field...
...and you don't notice it.
Are you saying it just want to be love like it say in the Bible?
Yeah, Celie. Everything want to be loved.
Us sing and dance and holler...
...and just trying to be loved.
Look at them trees.
Trees do everything to get attention that we do...
...except walk.
Oh, Miss Celie, I feels like singing!
Sister
You've been on my mind.
Oh, sister
We're two of a kind.
So, sister
I'm keeping my eyes on you.
I bet you think I don't know nothing...
All of us been prodigal children one time or another!
And it's possible for the Lord to drive you home.
And He can drive you home to truth.
He can fix it for you if you trust Him.
Let's sing "God Is Trying To Tell You Something."
Sing "God's Trying To Tell You Something."
So let me tell you something...
If I were you I would say, "Yeah!"
Speak, Lord
Speak to me
Oh, speak, Lord
Oh, just speak to me
I was so blind
I was so lost
Until You spoke to me
Oh, speak, Lord!
Speak to me!
Speak, my Lord
Speak to me
I love you, Lord!
Receive my soul!
Can't sleep at night
And wonder why
Well, maybe God is trying to tell you something
Cried all night
Something's gone wrong
Maybe God is trying to tell you something
Oh, you can't sleep at night
Maybe...
...God...
...is trying...
...to tell you something
See, Daddy, sinners have soul, too.
You expecting anybody?
No. Probably just some people lost their way.
Nettie!
This is your son...Adam.
Mama!
He says, welcome.
He says, a great day.
He says, this is the day of his dreams.
This is Olivia.
My mother.
And, Celie, Adam...has a wife.
Tashi, this is my sister, Celie.