"Beloved" is director Jonathan Demme's first film since 1993's "Philadelphia." It has taken 10 years of development, even with the vociferous support of Oprah Winfrey, to finally bring this film to the screen.
The result is well worth the wait. "Beloved" is a remarkable visual and emotional tour-de -force.
Its circuitous and multi-layered narrative, based on Toni Morrison's novel, is sometimes dense and often hard to follow, but, given the subject matter, this seems somehow appropriate.
Slavery's legacy is not straightforward nor is it one dimensional.
Sethe (Winfrey) lives in a ramshackle house just outside of Cincinnati with her daughter Denver (Kimberly Elise). Both her sons ran away years ago.
Sethe moved to the house eighteen years before, after escaping from the horrifying Kentucky Plantation Sweet Home.
The tale that follows is intercut with flashbacks and hallucinations of her life and escape from Sweet Home.
Sethe's house is haunted by the ghost of her baby girl who died eighteen years before. When Paul D (Danny Glover), Sethe's friend and fellow Sweet Home survivor, arrives at the house, the walls glow red and the ground shakes. He asks "Good God, Girl. What kind of evil you got in there." She replies "It's ain't evil. Just sad."
Sethe tells Paul D about the cherry tree on her back. In perhaps one of the most powerful sequences of the film -- there are many to choose from -- Paul D opens the back of her dress to see her tree.
Sethe does indeed have a cherry tree on her back.
However, the tree is not made of wood but of thick and twisted scars caused by the strike of a whip, one of the many reminders of her life at Sweet Home Plantation.
Paul D decides to stay and attempts to bring some kind of normalcy to the lives of Denver and Sethe.
However, the ghost grows increasingly angry at his presence. Paul D battles the ghost and it appears to go away.
Then, after a happy afternoon at the carnival, the family returns to find a strange woman (Thandie Newton) passed out against a tree and covered with bugs. Her feet are soft and flawless like a baby's and her shoes appear never to have been worn.
She can barely speak and has the motor coordination of a one year old child. She croaks her name -- Beloved.
She is precisely the age Sethe's child would have been had she lived. She is the baby's ghost in human form.
Beloved dominates the house with temper tantrums and demands for sweets.
Sethe and Denver gradually realize that she is the physical incarnation of the ghost that haunted their house. Paul D is eventually driven out, and Beloved tightens her control over Sethe and Denver.
Sethe believes that this is her chance to undo the harm she did to her child. The means of Beloved's original demise do not become clear until the end of the film.
Those of you who have read the book know how it happens. But for those of you who don't I won't spoil the suspense.
The film never makes any conclusions about Beloved, nor does it seek to explain or apologize for its metaphysical dimensions.
The film is based on Morrison's novel, "Beloved," which has become a modern-day classic. It garnered Morrison a Pulitzer prize and was instrumental in her winning of the Nobel Prize for literature.
The film stays as true to the novel as possible. However, the complexity and poignancy of the novel are the film's greatest strengths and its greatest weaknesses.
I have read the novel several times, and it is an incredibly complex tale. I assumed that the story was untranslatable to film.
Nevertheless, the screenwriter, Akosua Busia, comes as close to a successful adaptation as one could hope. However, that success is largely dependent on whether you've read the book or not.
Even after reading the book, I found some segments of the film confusing. Morrison's novel weaves metaphors on top of metaphors and travels back and forward in time at will.
Although, the film is close to three hours long, the story is simply too dense to digest in such a short period of time.
A chronological account of the novel may have made the film more accessible but it would undermine the story's principle message.
In Sethe's life, the unimaginable indignities of slavery and the horrors she faced to escape it are inextricably linked to her present life. Her past is in effect her present.
The acting is generally strong. Oprah Winfrey gives a good if not spectacular performance as Sethe.
Lisa Gay Hamilton, from TV's "The Practice," plays the young Sethe, and is perhaps a stronger actress.
Kimberly Elise gives a quiet but extremely effective performance as Denver. She speaks little but communicates volumes with her eyes alone.
Thandie Newton is truly mesmerizing as Beloved. She moves with the coordination of a toddler and speaks like an alien, yet never appears comic.
Demme avoids Hollywoodizing the film. These are not beautiful people.
The actors' teeth are brown and uncared for. When Sethe and Paul D make love they are often awkward. Their bodies are imperfect and covered with scars.
If you're in the mood for light entertainment, "Beloved" may not be the best choice.
But whether you've read the book or not, this an important and thought provoking film.
Go see it.
