Their Eyes Were Watching God

Well, I can admit when I am wrong and I was wrong about Halle Berry's performance. Halle was incredible as the head strong Janie Crawford and Michael Ealy added some sexy sizzle to the drifter Tea Cake. I really was impressed with the chemistry Berry and Ealy had it seemed so real. Also, I loved the production from the beautiful Florida Everglades, to the rural Eatonville town. The clothing was great as well. I also must thank. Ms. Oprah Winfery for once again bringing the rich African American literature to the masses in America. Zora Neale Hurston must also be thanked for discussing the sexism, and the patriarchy that affected black women in the early 20th century. Zora's novel is not just an American classic people from all over the African Diaspora and the world thank Ms. Hurston for her work. She will never be forgotten.

I've read the book and seen the movie; the book is better. To do justice to the book, the movie should have been in two parts, the first could have focused on Janie's childhood and youth and her life with Joe Starks and the second could have focused on her life with Tea Cake. I knew I'd have problems with the movie when Oprah introduced the movie by talking about Janie kissing Tea Cake. No movie could include everything in the book, but by leaving out Janie's family history, we don't get a clear idea why Nanny forces Janie to marry Logan Killicks. In the novel, the people in Eatonville are complex and interesting people. In the movie, they are reduced to clichés. Don't any of the work? Sorry, but race is an important part of the book and there should have been a way to include this in the movie. Mrs. Turner and the trial are important parts of the novel; the movie was a Lifetime feature. Halle Berry doesn't have the acting chops to play Janie. She looked the same from beginning to end. Put a little dirt on her and she still looks good. The scenes in the Glades were awful. Unlike, the novel, there was no sense of the people working. The movie gives the impression that these people spend most of their time singing and dancing in camp. Talk about a cliché. In the novel Janie makes a choice to go work with Tea Cake; in the movie it was Halle going slumming. The end of the novel is grabs you; the movie's end was laughable. By the way, I don't think the novel is anti-male or anti-white. Oprah said that Zora Neale Hurston was going to let out a shout. Yes and the shout would be "Orpah you ruined my novel!" Orpah made a movie called "Their Eyes Were Watching Halle." I hope someday, someone will make a real movie of "Their Eyes Were Watching God."

I didn't think this was that bad. It is a woman's story about going through a few relationships before finding love.

The film is well made with acting, camera work and pace all being consistently good. I also thought the plot was well scripted. However, I never really felt as much passion I think one would want from this sort of film.

I am a Black woman and I have read Their Eyes Were Watching God many times, most recently when I learned that Oprah Winfrey and ABC were presenting the television movie. I was absolutely horrified at what I saw on Sunday. Halle Berry simply did not do justice to the character she sought to portray. Janie Crawford is a dignified, free spirited, intelligent, strong character. The portrayal presented on ABC was insulting to the memory of Zora Neale Hurston in that Berry played Janie as a flighty, promiscuous, immodest tart who went off with whatever man appealed to her at any given moment. And to add insult to injury, Suzan Lori Parks neglected to adequately address a number of the important issues raised by Ms. Hurston, specifically the issues of skin tone and class among Black folks. How could Michael Ealy possibly play Tea Cake, who Ms. Hurston wrote as a dark skinned Black man, not the perpetually sweaty, open-shirted, light-skinned, mumbling buffoon presented to us on Sunday? I watched the movie with four other Black people, two men and two women. No one had anything positive to say about the movie. I held on as long as I could, but after two hours, I had to agree with my fellow viewers: the movie was horrible. Shame on all involved who had any sort of creative control over this debacle. May Hurston haunt you until you know better.

We watched the movie as a class assignment after reading the book and i must say i really liked the movie, but the book is still so much better! so if you liked the movie, i advise you to read the book - its fantastic! Many key points in the book (or so i thought) was not in the movie, an example is Janie's trial after she kills Tea Cake and several of the characters were also Unfortunately left out. But it is a very good movie - especially for a made for TV movie.

to everyone who enjoys a good movie with some meaning to it; see this movie

to everyone who have read the book; the movie is great and really does the book justice (As least as much as can be expected from a movie made for such a great book)