Before he made the Joker boogie in 1989, changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol in defiance against the music industry oppression in 1993 and long before he tragically died in 2016, Prince, with his first backing band the Revolution, cemented his superstar status with his 1984 film debut Purple Rain and its celebrated soundtrack which has sold over 13 million copies worldwide. The film actually grossed nearly $80 million worldwide but has gathered a devoted cult following, naturally consisting largely of strong Prince fans like myself.
In this semi-autobiographical tale, His Royal Badness plays the Kid, an upstart club musician in Minneapolis, Minnesota who's equally alienated and talented. Stuck living at home with his warring, abusive parents (Olga Karlatos and Clarence Williams III), the Kid also has to control his mounting frustration. His only solace is in his burgeoning affair with the smoky Apollonia Kotera (lead singer of Apollonia 6, the real-life girl group Prince assembled). After playing a few shows at the First Avenue nightclub (the real Minneapolis venue where Prince's career began), rival bandleader Morris Day (as himself) of the Time lobbies the club's owner Billy (Billy Sparks) to replace the Revolution with Apollonia 6, looking to win Kotera's heart. She soons joins Morris' plan and when the Kid learns of this, fireworks erupt. After then trashing his whole house, the Kid finds what could be his saviour: a collection of ripper lyrics his father wrote. Once he puts those to music, he takes the stage again at the club, wins Apollonia back and leaves everybody awestruck.
I mustn't lie to you: this flick's appeal will always be the strongest with Prince fans like me, just as all rock music films appeal the most to fans of the artists it stars. But what helps Purple Rain surpass that is the very human narrative at its core. As we see the Kid escape from his awful family life through his passion for music, it reinforces how all art and entertainment forms can offer such a refuge. And yes, Prince mightn't have been a great actor but hey, the part was fashioned after himself and when he gets on stage to rock, it's abundantly clear just how much he really loved giving an audience a visual and auditory extravaganza.
Purple Rain was directed and co-written by Albert Magnoli, who'd previously made a short about jazz musicians called Jazz. His direction is pretty conventional but he manages to work the concert sequences and the dramatic narrative pretty cohesively together, and his own passion for music is evident throughout. Also worth noting is that one of the producers was Rob Cavallo, an executive with Prince's record label Warner Bros. who later discovered and signed Green Day.
RIP Your Royal Badness, Prince. Wherever you are now, we only want to see you laughing in the purple rain.
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