Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Toni Morrison, Beloved was a box office failure in that it was budgeted at $80 million and only ended up grossing $22 million. Oprah Winfrey, the film's star and one of the producers was depressed over the reception of the film but director Jonathan Demme pointed out that had Disney honored its promise to bring the film back in the theaters at the end of the year after replacing it with an Adam Sandler film, it probably would have done much better.
It's a film that's superior to some of the more recent films that have come out on the subject of slavery as instead of focusing on the direct cruel acts of racists, it concentrates instead on the emotional/psychological after effects on ex-slaves who now had to cope as free men and women.
Beloved takes place in Ohio seven years after the Civil War, an unusual setting as most slavery chronicles deal with what went on before the war and when African-Americans were enslaved and living in the South. The main character is Sethe (Oprah Winfrey), an African-American woman who years earlier escaped from the plantation (ironically named "Sweet Home"). Her husband Halle (whom we never meet) somehow is able to buy the freedom of his mother Baby Suggs, who ends up living in Ohio with three of Sethe's children.
We learn through flashbacks that back at Sweet Home, Sethe was raped and violated by the nephews of the plantation's owner Schoolteacher (also ironically named); not only do the nephews carve up her back with the scars appearing in the shape of a tree but also drink her breast milk while she's pregnant.
Sethe escapes Sweet Home and makes her way through Kentucky, aided by the feral-like Amy Denver, the coarse white woman who has no qualms using the n-word to address Sethe but also helps her give birth to a daughter, whom Sethe promptly names "Denver," after this intrepid white woman who helps her.
Once ensconced in the small house given to Baby Suggs by a benevolent white couple from Cincinnati, and deeded to Sethe following her mother-in-law's passing, we learn that the home is haunted by a poltergeist. Is it an actual poltergeist or perhaps a hallucination? It's this supernatural element however that I think drags the picture down a bit. At the beginning of the story, Sethe's sons run off precisely because of this obnoxious spirit haunting the house. It takes away from the entire verisimilitude of the picture so it might have been better to imply that the supernatural element was simply an aspect of Sethe's memory.
The bulk of the picture revolves around the appearance of Paul G. (Danny Glover), the former slave from Sweet Home who comes back to court Sethe and settle down with her. Right away there's tension between Paul G. and Sethe's daughter Denver (Kimberly Elise) who partly resents having to stay at home and help her mother. Things become vastly more complicated when Beloved (Thandie Newton) shows up on Sethe's doorsteps. Beloved clearly has mental health issues and is apparently the reincarnation of Sethe's deceased daughter (whose shocking death we soon find out about as the plot moves along).
I still had trouble with the supernatural element here especially when Beloved is introduced as such a fantastic (unrealistic) character. Again, if we view Beloved as someone who learned something about Sethe before she showed up on her doorstep, she's much more believable as a real person who ends up convincing herself that Sethe is her mother; by the same token, one can view Sethe coming to believe that Beloved's soul has now been inhabited by her deceased daughter.
Paul G eventually learns the true nature of what happened to the deceased daughter when a co-worker shows and reads to him (Paul G is illiterate) a newspaper article which reveals that Sethe murdered her daughter after Schoolteacher and his minions show up in Ohio (prior to the start of the Civil War) and are about to take her back to Sweet Home under the auspices of the Fugitive Slave Act.
Slavery is so horrible that the thought of returning to Sweet Home with her children propels Sethe to murder her own children. As it turns out, she's stopped from killing the rest of the children and the Sweet Home racists decide not to take her back to the plantation, concluding that she is a mentally ill.
When Paul G. finds out what Sethe did, he leaves her but she insists that she had no other choice but to kill her children so they wouldn't have to be subjected to living a life as a slave. The rest of Beloved deals with Sethe's gradual mental breakdown and the disappearance of Beloved whose earlier machinations (including her seduction of Paul G), led to Sethe's eventual decompensation. Only Denver is able to pull herself together, as she strikes out on her own, gets a job and establishes some sort of independence.
Beloved ends on a hopeful note with the return of Paul G. to help Sethe who may eventually recover from her crushing depression. The community too must recover from the horrors of slavery as their religious convictions help them to overcome their lack of self-esteem and help them to believe in themselves.
Beloved is a powerful indictment of slavery and its effect on African-Americans. It explains how slavery damaged the self-worth of African-Americans but also notes their perseverance in overcoming such a dark legacy. Beloved might have worked a bit better without the supernatural elements but still has many great insights into a very dark chapter in US history.
It's a film that's superior to some of the more recent films that have come out on the subject of slavery as instead of focusing on the direct cruel acts of racists, it concentrates instead on the emotional/psychological after effects on ex-slaves who now had to cope as free men and women.
Beloved takes place in Ohio seven years after the Civil War, an unusual setting as most slavery chronicles deal with what went on before the war and when African-Americans were enslaved and living in the South. The main character is Sethe (Oprah Winfrey), an African-American woman who years earlier escaped from the plantation (ironically named "Sweet Home"). Her husband Halle (whom we never meet) somehow is able to buy the freedom of his mother Baby Suggs, who ends up living in Ohio with three of Sethe's children.
We learn through flashbacks that back at Sweet Home, Sethe was raped and violated by the nephews of the plantation's owner Schoolteacher (also ironically named); not only do the nephews carve up her back with the scars appearing in the shape of a tree but also drink her breast milk while she's pregnant.
Sethe escapes Sweet Home and makes her way through Kentucky, aided by the feral-like Amy Denver, the coarse white woman who has no qualms using the n-word to address Sethe but also helps her give birth to a daughter, whom Sethe promptly names "Denver," after this intrepid white woman who helps her.
Once ensconced in the small house given to Baby Suggs by a benevolent white couple from Cincinnati, and deeded to Sethe following her mother-in-law's passing, we learn that the home is haunted by a poltergeist. Is it an actual poltergeist or perhaps a hallucination? It's this supernatural element however that I think drags the picture down a bit. At the beginning of the story, Sethe's sons run off precisely because of this obnoxious spirit haunting the house. It takes away from the entire verisimilitude of the picture so it might have been better to imply that the supernatural element was simply an aspect of Sethe's memory.
The bulk of the picture revolves around the appearance of Paul G. (Danny Glover), the former slave from Sweet Home who comes back to court Sethe and settle down with her. Right away there's tension between Paul G. and Sethe's daughter Denver (Kimberly Elise) who partly resents having to stay at home and help her mother. Things become vastly more complicated when Beloved (Thandie Newton) shows up on Sethe's doorsteps. Beloved clearly has mental health issues and is apparently the reincarnation of Sethe's deceased daughter (whose shocking death we soon find out about as the plot moves along).
I still had trouble with the supernatural element here especially when Beloved is introduced as such a fantastic (unrealistic) character. Again, if we view Beloved as someone who learned something about Sethe before she showed up on her doorstep, she's much more believable as a real person who ends up convincing herself that Sethe is her mother; by the same token, one can view Sethe coming to believe that Beloved's soul has now been inhabited by her deceased daughter.
Paul G eventually learns the true nature of what happened to the deceased daughter when a co-worker shows and reads to him (Paul G is illiterate) a newspaper article which reveals that Sethe murdered her daughter after Schoolteacher and his minions show up in Ohio (prior to the start of the Civil War) and are about to take her back to Sweet Home under the auspices of the Fugitive Slave Act.
Slavery is so horrible that the thought of returning to Sweet Home with her children propels Sethe to murder her own children. As it turns out, she's stopped from killing the rest of the children and the Sweet Home racists decide not to take her back to the plantation, concluding that she is a mentally ill.
When Paul G. finds out what Sethe did, he leaves her but she insists that she had no other choice but to kill her children so they wouldn't have to be subjected to living a life as a slave. The rest of Beloved deals with Sethe's gradual mental breakdown and the disappearance of Beloved whose earlier machinations (including her seduction of Paul G), led to Sethe's eventual decompensation. Only Denver is able to pull herself together, as she strikes out on her own, gets a job and establishes some sort of independence.
Beloved ends on a hopeful note with the return of Paul G. to help Sethe who may eventually recover from her crushing depression. The community too must recover from the horrors of slavery as their religious convictions help them to overcome their lack of self-esteem and help them to believe in themselves.
Beloved is a powerful indictment of slavery and its effect on African-Americans. It explains how slavery damaged the self-worth of African-Americans but also notes their perseverance in overcoming such a dark legacy. Beloved might have worked a bit better without the supernatural elements but still has many great insights into a very dark chapter in US history.