In this faithful, perhaps overly faithful, adaptation of Toni Morrison`s novel, Oprah Winfrey plays Sethe, who is ekeing out a living on a farm near Cincinatti with her daughter, Denver, Kimberly Elise. The year is 1873 - eight years after the Civil War which freed the slaves; Sethe had, we discover, been a slave and had undergone severe privations before settling down on this place. Early in the film she has two visitors: Paul D, Danny Glover, an old friend she hasn`t seen in years, and a strange young woman, Thandie Newton, who can hardly talk but who seems to be called Beloved...
This was a pet project for Oprah Winfrey, who acquired the rights to the book, commissioned a screenplay, and approached several directors to handle the material, settling on Jonathan Demme. Demme is usually good value - he made The Silence Of The Lambs and his last feature prior to this was Philadelphia. But he seems to have been intimidated by this material; his handling is sluggish, the supernatural scenes are silly, the performances variable (including Winfrey) and the film, at almost three hours, a lot less interesting than it should have been, given the fascinating subject matter. What went wrong?
Margaret`s Comments:
Toni Morrison`s novel apparently charts the baggage carried, both metaphysically and physically, by survivors of slavery. Some books are best left to the imagination rather than being transplanted into cinematic reality. Jonathan Demme, a fine director, attacks difficult material here as he presents a ghost story as the central narrative of a social drama to a contemporary and cynical audience. It doesn`t work. Oprah Winfrey, who bought the rights to the book soon after it was published and was one of the producers, gives an impressive understated performance but presenting Thandie Newton`s Beloved as a gibbering, hysterical wild child just begs credibility. It`s fascinating, but distracting and discomforting, bringing a feeling that the whole film is overwrought and self-important. However, the performances of Danny Glover and Kimberly Elise give solid support to a structure that is possibly too fragile for film treatment.
