Review: Beloved

Beloved strives to be a film of uncommon grace. Oh, how it strives! Helmed by Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs) and nurtured by the tenacious and omnipresent Oprah Winfrey, this adaptation of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel valiantly attempts to be unforgettable. It's quite impossible to forget at nearly three hours, especially since those hours do not pass with ease. If I were less polite, I would call them a drain on my existence.

The prelude sets the tone. A shot of a simple tombstone with the name Beloved leads to a house in the outskirts of Cincinnati, Ohio. Inside the house, chaos. Shouts and cries of children are heard. A dog flies through the air and slams against a wall. A mirror breaks. Two young boys kiss their sister goodbye and flee from the house, never to return. The sister remains with her mother, a former slave named Sethe (Oprah Winfrey). And, of course, the ghost.

Eight years later, Paul D (Danny Glover) arrives at her doorstep. An old friend with whom she embarks on a tentative romance, Paul D triggers memories of her time at Sweet Home, the Kentucky plantation from which she ran. On the heels of his arrival comes a mysterious young woman named Beloved (Thandie Newton), a strange creature first seen wading out a river then leaning against a tree, her form covered with beetles and butterflies. Paul D, Sethe and her daughter Denver (Kimberly Elise) take her in but don't quite know what to make of their visitor, who possesses a voice alternately croaked and lyrical and the manners of a child. For Sethe, she becomes another daughter. For the isolated Denver, she becomes both child and playmate. For Paul D, however, she is a figure to be wary of. As time passes, it dawns on Denver that Beloved is the ghost of Sethe's eldest daughter, whom Sethe killed in order to spare her from a life of slavery.

There is much to be admired in the production. Demme elicits topnotch performances from the cast. Particular mention should be made to Beah Richards, who portrays the elderly Baby Suggs. Preaching the gospel of love and humanity -- "Love your flesh! Love it hard! For yonder, they do not love our flesh." -- she nearly drags the movie to transcendence. Winfrey was right to cast Glover, her co-star from The Color Purple; she and Glover share an easygoing chemistry that has the right amount of ache. He delivers one of the most powerful performances of his career. Watching the Lethal Weapon films, as pleasing as they are, may have caused audiences to forget how devastating an actor he can be.

Elise and Newton work wonders as well; it's as if we've never seen them before though both have played substantial roles in other films. Elise, who appeared as a single mother who resorts to robbing banks in Set It Off, is utterly convincing as the cloistered and wary Denver. She comports herself with an armored manner, probing eyes and a proud mouth. When she discovers Beloved's true identity and mission -- "She's the one I need," Beloved wails, "You can go. She's the one I have to have." -- Elise conjures immense power from her sudden stillness. Newton, as the spectral Beloved, is astonishing. The physicality of her performance, embodied in her rag doll grace, the childish impetuousness, the obsessive love for Sethe, suggests a courage heretofore unseen. She is at once demonic, ethereal and, at times, embryonic. As magnificent as Newton is, I doubt that she fully captures Beloved as Morrison does in the writing.

Winfrey, however, isn't quite perfect. She's up to par; there is no doubt as to how fiercely committed she is to Sethe but I don't detect the past in her eyes. When she relates her secret horrors, you sense that she is telling a story rather than reliving an experience. Lisa Gay Hamilton, as the young Sethe, does what Oprah cannot, namely convey the shame, the wounded pride and the clawing determination of the survivor Sethe is. Winfrey does her level best but can't do Sethe full justice.

Does Winfrey do right by the novel? Does anybody ever do right by a novel? I suppose the question is moot once an adaptation is made but Beloved is a heady undertaking as far as adaptations go. The novel combines elements of a ghost story, American gothic and, of course, a history lesson. Beloved, who represents not only the ghost of the dead child but the ghost of a slave past, is a creation of such originality and symbolism that nothing less than perfection is demanded in her transition from novel to film. Akosua Busia (The Color Purple), Richard LaGravanese (The Bridges of Madison County) and Adam Brooks (Practical Magic) do manage an admirable adaptation although additional truncation would have been wise. Several transitions seem awkward, especially the moments leading to Paul D's transgression with Beloved. The shift in tone is carelessly abrupt though I'm not sure how the scriptwriters or Demme could have remedied it.

At times, Beloved makes for brutal viewing. Demme does not shy away from showing the atrocities Sethe underwent and performed. Unlike The Silence of the Lambs, there is no strong psychological intimacy in Beloved's gothic mood. It feels too steeped in its own self-importance, as if it knew it were performing for a statue named Oscar. The trailers raise expectations, the complete film fails to fully deliver.

Beloved

Directed by: Jonathan Demme

Written by: Akosua Busia, Richard LaGravanese, and Adam Brooks; based on the novel by Toni Morrison

Starring: Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise, Hill Harper, Beah Richards, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Wes Bentley, Jason Robards, Irma P. Hall, Dorothy Love Coates