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BELOVED Send This Review to a Friend
Too self-consciously arty and often confusing, "Beloved," based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Toni Morrison and directed by Jonathan Demme, nonetheless delivers some telling emotional moments and shows sensitivity to the lasting wounds inflicted by the brutality and immorality of slavery upon its African-American victims and descendents.
When it comes to putting such a story on the screen, the film medium has its own demands and it shouldn't be necessary to have read the original work. "Beloved" emerges as a sprawling, three-hour drama that suffers from the effort to introduce some of the horrors of the past via a "ghost" returning to assert itself in another body. While this may work in the novel, at times the film seems like a replay of "The Exorcist" as Thandie Newton, portraying the mysterious young woman who calls herself Beloved, gurgles, rasps and grimaces.
On the plus side is the dynamic performance of Oprah Winfrey as an escaped slave hiding a secret past in which she took an excruciating, horrific step in her effort to see that her children were not committed to a life of slavery. There's another stellar turn by Danny Glover as Paul D, who becomes a major presence in this pain-wracked household.
Given the problems of adaptation, perhaps Morrison's novel should have stayed between covers. It was certainly a labor of love by Winfrey, the co-producing force behind the project, and all concerned. It is worthy of recommendation, with the caveat that there's an awful lot that seems like gibberish entwined with the elements that pack strength. A Touchstone Pictures release.
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