Purple Rain (1984)

(On Cable TV, May 2020) While Purple Rain was, upon release, much criticized as a vehicle for Prince’s egomania, it’s now best appreciated as a showcase for his distinctive purple-tinged aesthetics. Obviously, this is a film with terrific music, taking up the space left by the self-indulgent storytelling. Just witness the spectacular opening sequence, scored to the infectious fun of “Let’s Go Crazy.” The rest is never quite as good, but while most movies would never recover from starting at such a high point, this one just keeps going deeper into Prince’s eccentricity, with a high-camp result that sports sound effects and visuals to highlight its melodramatic moments. The charges of this being a self-indulgent film are a bit strange—if you’re going to go the autobiographical self-congratulatory route, would you pick an abrasive persona with severe romantic and domestic problems? This is where a bit of Hollywood fiction would have helped. At least, visually it’s very stylish. The clothing does get a bit ridiculous at times—would this what you’d wear on a date, at the pond or just returning home? But no matter—the overall acting is not particularly refined, but it would be hard to notice in a film where everything is heightened. Appolonia Kotero looks really good. Amusingly, the closed captioning of the song lyrics adopts Prince’s idiosyncratic spelling (2, u). Purple Rain is an immensely flawed star vehicle, but not in the ways that count: it remains a wonderful showcase for Prince, and the music hits hard.