Re: Critics of the movie version of The Color Purple (i)________
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09 Mar 2019, 07:38
Question
Critics of the movie version of The Color Purple (i)________ its saccharine, overoptimistic tone as out of keeping with the novel’s more (ii)_______ quality.
Explanation
The critics could give a positive, negative or neutral review. Since the sentence states that the movie's tone was saccharine (excessively sweet or sentimental) and overoptimistic, we can understand that they would have criticized the movie and not praised it. Therefore, decried is the correct choice. Also since the tone of the movie is described as "out of keeping" with the novel's quality, the novel's quality would have been the exact opposite of saccharine and overoptimistic. The only word which suggests such a meaning is acerbic, which means sarcastic, bitter, hurtful, wounding, acrimonious. Hence that is the correct choice. Cloying means excessively sweet to a sickening level and sanguine means optimistic or positive even in a bad and difficult situation. Both are opposites of acerbic and should be rejected.