Review: Beloved (1998)
Matt Williams
A film review by Matt Williams
RATING: * * * 1/2* out of * * * *
The movie Beloved is rather like it's title character: unusual,
disorienting and not quite what you'd expect. However, that's not to
say that the film isn't good (which it is), but rather that it's a
difficult beast to classify. It's eerily supernatural, yet with an
earthy realism. It's intimate in scale, and yet epic in scope.
Oprah Winfrey stars as Sethe, a woman who ran away from slavery eighteen
years earlier, and now lives on the outskirts on Cincinnati. She lives
with her antisocial daughter, Denver (Kimberly Elise), as well as a
mysterious poltergeist, in their house at 124 Bluestone Road.
Yes, you read that right, "poltergeist". Their house is haunted. And
while the Amityville-goings-on might scare away anyone with common
sense, Sethe is simply tired of running. Besides, the spirit which
shakes their house and squeezes their dog isn't evil..."just sad".
But things are stirred up by the arrival of two visitors. The first is
Paul D (Danny Glover), a weary man who knew Sethe when they were both
slaves at the Sweet Home Plantation. The second is more mysterious, an
asthmatic girl (Thandie Newton) who moves like an epileptic puppet and
calls herself "Beloved" in a croaking voice.
Jonathan Demme directs this adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel with a
hallucinatory flair. Some scenes are oversaturated, others faded.
Colors glow, the angles shift... it's almost as if the camera is
possessed, as well as the house. Yet, through it all, we are able to
connect and bond with the characters, and experience the horrors and
triumphs of their story.
Oprah Winfrey could have her pick of roles, and certainly could have
picked a more glamorous one than Sethe, but it would have been hard to
find a stronger character. Wounded with scars deeper than the welts on
her back, Sethe is a complex, multilayered character. Many an actress
might have stumbled in the role, but Oprah is up to the challenge, and
delivers Sethe's many facets.
Danny Glover isn't as lucky. His Paul D is as downtrodden as Sethe, but
not as nuanced. We learn little about him as the film progresses, and,
eventually, he is just cast aside. We see his external feelings towards
Sethe, Beloved and Denver, but rarely his motivations.
Thandie Newton is appropriately creepy and charming in the role of
Beloved. Though, even at the end of the film, many things about her
remain a mystery, it is a fascinating character, and a challenging
role. Kimberly Elise's Denver is less showy, but no less well acted.
She is able to hold her own against all the otherworldly happenings in
her house...just not ready to face the real world.
The storyline of Beloved is complex, but not convoluted. It does
require that you pay attention, however. An ill-timed bathroom run
during this 3-hour movie may mean you'll be missing the keystone to the
whole puzzle. Be warned.
Perhaps the best adjective to describe Beloved is "haunting". Just as
Sethe and Paul D are haunted by the past, and just as 124 Bluestone Road
is haunted...so too, you'll be haunted by Beloved.
Copyright 1998 Matt Williams
- Matt Williams (ma...@cinematter.com)
Reviewer for Cinematter: http://www.cinematter.com
Home of over 600 reviews, and information on nearly 700 upcoming
releases
Kleszczewski, Nicholas
Beloved
I haven't read _Beloved_, but I can see why it was a prize-winning
novel. The story is of Sethe, her daughter Denver, and Paul D., who are
former slaves being terrorized by a poltergeist. Digging deeper, the
"ghost" aspect serves as a complex allegory of the past, and it evokes
sentiments of mystery, awe, beauty, and repressed horror.
The film "Beloved" evokes no such sentiment. If ever there were to be a
textbook case of a film with noble intentions, a stellar cast, a
reputable director, and a stellar Oscar-baiting campaign, doomed,
doomed, doomed, due to the miscasting of that single pivotal figure,
this is it.
That character is played by Thandie Newton, and her performance is
god-awful. She isn't mysterious. She isn't horrifying. She doesn't
evoke the central metaphor of repressed emotions of slavery. She evokes
the cheese of Roger Corman and Ed Wood, sans charisma.
For example, to evoke terror, she speaks in breathy monotone, shifting
her jaw to the right. Scary? Why, it's flat-out hilarious! Gusts of
laughter were heard in the screening I attended.
The rest of the cast is in an entirely different league. Oprah Winfrey
is good as Sethe, but this is familiar terrain for those who have seen
her in _Native Son_. Danny Glover suffices, though he's just playing
himself. The real surprise is Kimberly Elise. She's fantastic, in the
same way that Natalie Portman and Claire Danes are beyond their years.
When she's onscreen, you see her performance abosolutely riveted, filled
with resentment and fear, and never enjoying her childhood. Elise's
performance was the single reason why I weathered the entirity of the
film.
At three hours, the film is too long, and perhaps could do without some
scenes of Grandma preaching in the woods. Further, it could have done
without the multiple gross-out scenes that have nothing to do with the
central theme of slavery. Ants crawling on a young woman? A dog's eye
poked out? Oprah urinating? A pregnant naked woman shrieking in
public? Still reading this?
Back to the title character. Perhaps the character was so hard to
portray that no casting could have sufficed (a possible exception would
be the Caucasian Emily Watson, who treaded familiar ground successfully
in _Breaking the Waves_). Perhaps it would have been better to
underwrite Beloved's character so completely, that all we see is an
invisible person, and the family's reaction to her.
My point being, as long as the mysterious Beloved is described with
words, she would remain an indelible creation of our own imaginations.
But because Jonathan Demme and Oprah had chosen to be explicit in the
film's portrayal of the title character, the mystery is gone, and what
results is the impossible fusion of the important period piece and a
campy horror film. And like oil and water, they just don't mix.
Who was this film made for? Patrons who enjoy campy horror fluff would
not want to sit thru a three-hour self-important message film, and the
prestigious artsy types would not want any campy gore with their
delectable Oscar-bait delight.
_That_ is the reason why this film bombed. It's not that viewers prefer
the dumb antics of _The Waterboy_. It's that if we want to laugh at a
movie, we want to make sure that the film was _supposed_ to be funny.
Nick Scale (1 to 10): 5