For Colored Girls (2010)

Kimberly Elise: Crystal, Brown

Photos 

Quotes 

• [opening lines; all in voiceover] 

  Yasmine : [as she dances]  Dark phrases of womanhood, of never having been a girl. Half-note scattered without rhythm.

  Juanita : [as she waters her plants]  ... without rhythm. No tune distraught. Laughter falling over a black girl's shoulders. It's funny...

  Gilda : [as she cleans dust away with her broom]  ... funny. It's hysterical. The melodylessness of her dance. Don't tell nobody, don't tell a soul. She's dancing on beer cans and shingles.

  Jo : [as she readies herself for bed]  She's dancing on beer cans and shingles. This must be the spook house. Another song with no singers, lyrics no voices and uninterrupted solos, unseen performances. Are we ghouls? Children of horror?

  Alice : [as she prays in her closet]  Children of horror? The joke? Don't tell nobody, don't tell a soul. Are we animals? Have we gone crazy?

  Kelly : [as she looks at a pregnancy test]  ... gone crazy? I can't hear anything but maddening screams and the soft strains of death. And you promised me. You promised somebody. Anybody. Sing a black girl's song.

  Nyla : [as she walks to the stage for her diploma]  ... a black girl's song. Bring her out to know herself. To know you, but sing her rhythms caring...

  Tangie : [as she reads over unseen documents]  ... caring, struggle. Hard times, sing her song of life. She's been dead so long, closed in silence so long.

  Crystal : [as she has sex with Beau Willie]  ... so long.She doesn't know the sound of her own voice, her infinite beauty. She's half-note scattered without rhythm, no tune. Sing her sighs... Sing the song of her possibilities. Sing a righteous gospel. Let her be born.

  Yasmine , Juanita , Gilda , Jo , Alice , Kelly , Nyla , Tangie , Crystal : [simultaneously]  Let her be born and handled warmly. And this is for colored girls who have considered suicide but moved to the ends of their own rainbows.

• Beau Willie : You love me?

  Crystal : Man, I've loved you since I was 14.

• Juanita : [enters the office]  Hi! I'm Juanita Sims, and I'm so glad

  [shakes hands with Jo] 

  Juanita : you took this meeting. Now I'll be quick, because I know you're very busy.

  [sits on the chair] 

  Juanita : I read in your magazine about your upbringing. I just knew that this would be a program that you would respond to. First of all, I'm a nurse, and I have just opened a free health and wellness clinic in a community center in one of the poorest neighborhoods in this city. Oh, forgive me. I'm just a little nervous. As you know...

  Jo : Where do I come in?

  Juanita : Well... It's a little non-profit, and everything I do I do out of my own pocket and...

  Jo : Let me stop you right now. I give to cancer, I give to Africa, I give to education. Those are my charities of choice.

  Juanita : Well, those are all very good charities, but there is so much need in our own community.

  Jo : 'Our?' We are all afforded the same opportunities in 'our' community. What they do with theirs, it is not my issue. Your answer is no. End of conversation.

  Juanita : End of conversation?

  Juanita : Crystal, show Miss Simmons out.

  [Crystal comes in] 

  Jo : It's Sims. Miss Juanita Sims.

  [leaves Jo's table] 

  Crystal : [to Juanita]  Right this way.

  Juanita : [stops and turns back to Jo]  No. I've been waiting out there in that damn lobby of yours for over an hour for you. Now, it's cool, you don't want to give any money, I get that. But this attitude, this blatant disrespect for other people's time and feelings, well, honey, that's just ridiculous. Does it take all of this for you to be that? Then, honey, if it does, then you may be paying just a little too much. And I can see myself out of this tacky-ass place. Ain't got no color up in here, all this white. No color up in this place, including you.

  [walks out of the office] 

  Juanita : Tacky-ass heifer. Wait till I tell everybody how tacky you are. I can show my own self out, thank you very much.

  [tries to open the door] 

  Juanita : How do I open this damn door?

• Crystal : There's a part of me that knows it happened, but most of me feels like I'm dreaming. Am I awake? This must be what death feels like.