The film “For Colored Girls” is more evidence that a conspiracy exists to thwart movies with strong female leads. Most male film critics love to hate these types of films, and in order not to be out-snarked in the snarkiest of professions, female critics often join with them. So these movies typically rate just a couple of stars and enjoy far less success at the box office.

That’s simply a shame, because this film is well worth seeing. Forget the sometimes clumsy mashup of the film with the original 1975 stage play, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.”

The stellar performances of the nine main actresses far outweigh any issue with the vehicle itself (and admittedly, there are a couple of issues). Any or all of these black actresses, including Loretta Devine, Kimberly Elise, Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Tessa Thompson and Kerry Washington, could qualify for the Academy Award, particularly Ms. Elise.

How hard it is to think that some women’s lives are spent in the clutches of abusive boyfriends and crazy fathers and mothers, where they have to try to carve out “normal” lives amidst drug abuse and rape, and are forced to seek abortions in back alleys and watch their toddlers be murdered. It’s not an easy movie to watch, which makes the device used by director Tyler Perry — where the actresses recite the poetry from the stage play as they reflect on their own painful journeys — an effective respite from all the horror.

What people really don’t want to consider, I think, is that women such as these characters — of all races — live among us in greater numbers than we imagine. Just today, the story of a woman and her baby respectively suffocated and burned alive by a live-in boyfriend* shows that these things do happen to people whom we have likely passed on the street, in the mall, or in our neighborhood restaurants.

We owe it to our black sisters and to ourselves to consider these problems. And while there are no easy solutions, we can still bear witness, which is what this film accomplishes.

*See IndyStar.com: Death penalty considered for man accused of killing woman, igniting baby.