Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks and Colman Domingo also star in Blitz Bazawule’s retelling of the beloved Alice Walker novel, adapted from the Tony-winning Broadway show.

For a story so filled with trauma and sorrow — violence, suffering, racism, child abduction, spousal abuse — the second screen adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel, The Color Purple, is a surprisingly joyful experience. The prevailing takeaway is its resounding themes of spirituality, self-discovery, redemption and resilience. Based on the 2005 Broadway musical that was revived to great acclaim 10 years later, the production marks a confident move onto a much larger canvas for Ghanaian multimedia artist Blitz Bazawule. It nods graciously to the imprint of Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film while vigorously forging its own identity.

The stage musical features songs by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray and a book by Marsha Norman, which credits both the Walker novel and Menno Meyjes’ screenplay for the Spielberg film as source material. Playwright Marcus Gardley penned the latest adaptation, which stays true to the story’s previous iterations and their indelible portrait of the lives of Black women in the rural South of the early 20th century. Where this new film arguably gains in complexity is in its greater insight into the key male characters and the vividness with which it shapes the milieu around the importance of folk culture, music and faith.

Her performance was raw and real, putting Celie more firmly at the emotional center of a musical in which the protagonist spends a lot of time as a passive figure on the sidelines. That’s one of the inherent risks of having such scene-stealing supporting characters as the indomitable Sofia and the flamboyant juke-joint singer Shug Avery.

In an impressive dramatic film debut, Barrino makes an affecting journey of Celie’s emergence from hardship and oppression to independence, proud self-worth and love overflowing. Even if Bazawule’s film again takes its time centering Celie in her own narrative, few will be complaining when she’s sharing the attention with the wonderful Danielle Brooks, a titanic force reprising the role of Sofia that she played on Broadway in the 2015 revival; and with an equally divine Taraji P. Henson, showing megawatt charisma, exultant musicality and brassy glamor as Shug.

Smart casting is the movie’s greatest strength; the entire ensemble shines.

Mister’s son Harpo also becomes more nuanced in Corey Hawkins’ characterization — not to mention building on the actor’s In the Heights work with further evidence of his song-and-dance skills. Driven by his heart and not by the social conditioning of his upbringing, Harpo seems determined to break the cycle of men ruled by their hardness. He stumbles badly, and regrets it instantly, by succumbing to outmoded notions of how to keep his feisty wife Sofia in line. But until that misjudgment — prompting Brooks’ thundering refusal to be subjugated in one of the standout songs, “Hell No!” — their marriage is the blissful opposite of his father’s loveless union with Celie.

Bazawule and Nick Baxter have written a new song for Harpo, “Workin’,” performed while constructing the juke joint by the swamp that sets him on his entrepreneurial path. The marked difference between Mister and his eldest son is humorously encapsulated when Harpo and the men on his building crew are brushed aside as Sofia and the women take over.

That almost throwaway song, like many of the musical interludes, is pumped up by Fatima Robinson’s energetic choreography into a robust production number. If there’s a nagging fault with Bazawule’s approach to the material, it’s the feeling early on that not every song needs to be quite so big.