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Beloved

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Beloved (1998)

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Reviews Counted:66

Fresh:51

Rotten:15

Average Rating:7/10

Consensus: A powerful, emotional and successful film adaptation of the original novel.

Runtime: 2 hrs 52 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: With the startling, engrossing world of Beloved, director Jonathan Demme returns to the big screen following his Academy Award-winning work on The Silence of the Lambs and the emotional power of... With the startling, engrossing world of Beloved, director Jonathan Demme returns to the big screen following his Academy Award-winning work on The Silence of the Lambs and the emotional power of Philadelphia to craft a story of singular emotional impact. Academy Award nominee Oprah Winfrey stars with Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise and Beah Richards in this compelling story adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. Beloved translates to the screen with its visceral daring intact, thoroughly immersing viewers in the haunting, haunted landscape of this story.

Oprah Winfrey, for whom Beloved is the ultimate labor of love, appears in her first starring feature film role since earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress in The Color Purple, with a performance of undeniable fearlessness. Winfrey optioned the rights to Beloved upon its publication and nurtured the project for nearly a decade, personally shepherding it to its current incarnation as one of the most anticipated motion picture events of the year.

Winfrey stars as Sethe, a woman of elemental grace and unspoken mystery. A figure of fierce determination, Sethe is a runaway slave struggling to carve out her own simple existence with her children in rural Ohio, 1873. Preventing her from achieving that, however, is the painful legacy of her former life, and the desperate measures to which she is driven to keep herself and her family from returning to it.

Danny Glover stars as Paul D, an old friend who comes to visit Sethe and whose understanding is tested by her household's shattering secrets. Kimberly Elise portrays Sethe's daughter, Denver, an embattled young woman who must free herself from the crippling grasp that her mother's choices have on her. And Thandie Newton is Beloved. As Beloved grows to become part of Sethe's family, her devastating presence threatens to destroy the delicate balance of Sethe and Denver's existence. [More]

Starring: Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise

Starring: Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise, Beah Richards, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Albert Hall, Irma P. Hall

Director: Jonathan Demme

Director: Jonathan Demme
Screenwriter: Akosua Busia, Richard LaGravenese, Adam Brooks
Producer: Jonathan Demme, Oprah Winfrey, Gary Goetzman, Edward Saxon, Kate Forte
Composer: Rachel Portman

[See More Credits]

Reviews for Beloved

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
01/26/06
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Both Winfrey and Demme get a lot wrong.

Full Review Source: Sight and Sound | comment Comment
03/05/02
Charlotte O'Sullivan
Charlotte O'Sullivan
Sight and Sound
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
04/09/05
Robin Clifford
Robin Clifford
Reeling Reviews

Okay, great performances, nice to look at -- but what this movie is missing is something to hold it together in the middle.

Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | comment Comment
02/27/04
Liz Braun
Liz Braun
Jam! Movies

Filled with some of the most extraordinary images of recent years, Beloved was apparently too powerful for audiences to handle back in 1998.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
02/03/04
Jeremiah Kipp
Jeremiah Kipp
Slant Magazine
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Film Blather | comment Comment
05/22/03
Eugene Novikov
Eugene Novikov
Film Blather

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Palo Alto Weekly | comment Comment
05/20/03
Jim Shelby
Jim Shelby
Palo Alto Weekly

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Film Quips Online | comment Comment
02/08/03
John R. McEwen
John R. McEwen
Film Quips Online

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Nick's Flick Picks | comment Comment
01/10/03
Nick Davis
Nick Davis
Nick's Flick Picks

A movie that requires the viewer to meet it halfway. Those willing to make the effort will be rewarded with an exquisitely photographed and intricately layered drama.

Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment Comment
11/06/02
Jeff Strickler
Jeff Strickler
Minneapolis Star Tribune

It is sure to be studied, debated and cherished decades from now when Americans look to film for insights on who we are and where we have been.

Full Review Source: Cincinnati Enquirer | comment Comment
10/15/02
Margaret A. McGurk
Margaret A. McGurk
Cincinnati Enquirer

Demme masterfully exhibits both the harsh realities of the time with the unexplainable mystical world that settles in and around them like a fog, even if he has trouble making the two elements mesh.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
10/11/02
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Montreal Film Journal | comment Comment
09/10/02
Kevin N. Laforest
Kevin N. Laforest
Montreal Film Journal

Its spiritual messages, which are deep and true, redeem any structural flaws of this ambitious film.

Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | comment Comment
08/21/02
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice

a demanding, unsettling picture full of savage violence and deep-seated misery. Even when Sethe finds comfort in the arms of old friend Paul D ...the sight of their broken, scarred bodies coming together is heartbreaking rather than erotic.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Insiders | comment Comment
06/21/02
James Sanford
James Sanford
Entertainment Insiders

Something rare: a brave film about the emotional toll of slavery, the anguish of memory and the cruel divisions that still sear African American lives.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
06/18/02
Edward Guthmann
Edward Guthmann
San Francisco Chronicle

Mournful and moving, eerie and uncompromising.

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
06/05/02
L.J. Strom
L.J. Strom
Boxoffice Magazine

Demme's potent adaptation of Morrison's novel may be substantial, but it is also engrossing.

Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
04/12/02
Liam Lacey
Liam Lacey
Globe and Mail
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix | comment Comment
03/24/02
Boston Phoenix
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

You don't necessarily enjoy it, in a sense, you simply experience it.

Full Review Source: Needcoffee.com | comment Comment
11/08/01
Widgett Walls
Widgett Walls
Needcoffee.com
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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