This is much more involving story if you are a woman or black person, because you can relate more to the characters in the film. As with typical Hollywood, political correctness rules: most of the men (white or black) are bad while the women (mostly black) are all good. If you are a male watching the movie, this bias in the story can be very annoying.
Individually, I remember first watching this (I've seen it a couple of times) and being surprised what a good actress Oprah Winfrey was, and how appealing was Whoopi Goldberg's character "Celie." Goldberg became a star after this film (also for her comedy appearances on TV) but I always thought this role was, by far, her best or, at the least, her most appealing.
Rae Dawn Chong never looked prettier and Margaret Avery played a real charmer. Danny Glover was effectively nasty. You wanted to punch his lights out!
Overall, expect for what I mentioned above, this was good storytelling and certainly an involving, emotional story.
