Beloved

Commonweal, Nov 20, 1998 by Richard Alleva

Physically and temperamentally, Danny Glover is perfectly cast as Paul D. because no one portrays sane men of middle sensuality better than this actor. (His solidity is the only thing that has kept the Lethal Weapon series from turning completely loony.) But Glover has a tendency toward clotted speech and, trying to harmonize with Winfrey's low-level intensity, he often becomes inaudible. Did the director, aware of the wildness of the supernatural scenes, want to make the intimate ones as hushed as possible for the sake of contrast and relief? If so, his solution backfired.

Thandie Newton, as Beloved, achieves the grotesquery of her role but never its pathos. Kimberly Elise is at first hampered by the monotony of playing a girl who so completely withholds herself, but when Denver emerges from her emotional chrysalis, Elise projects candor and the discovery of inner strength beautifully. Best of all is the great veteran actress Beau Richards as a village elder who nurtures the spirits of the newly self-liberated slaves. Her exhortation to them to express their joy doesn't need verbal richness because Richards so poignantly reaches for the words she needs that the ache for eloquence is moving enough.

There is also good work by designer Kristi Zia and cinematographer Tak Fujimoto. The re-creation of the Cincinnati of 1873 is a far finer achievement than the pre-Civil War Connecticut in Amistad or the turn-of-the-century New York of Milos Foreman's Ragtime. Watching those two films, you may have marveled at the meticulousness of the settings, but also sensed the presence of a strike crew just off camera, ready to demolish everything once the shooting stopped. But Zia's Cincinnati projects the hum and bustle of a real, growing city where life will continue long past the final credits. Fujimoto is the least color-infatuated cameraman now working in this country, and most of his work (Melvin and Howard, The Silence of the Lambs) dwells in one's memory as black-and-white rather than Technicolor. Here he achieves a sort of brown-bleached-to-yellow look that is perfect for both the realistic and the supernatural scenes.

I must also note that in the final half-hour of this 185-minute movie, Jonathan Demme finally breaks through to the combination of off-beat humor, generosity, and suspense that distinguishes his finest work (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild). When a sort of ladies' aid society marches over to Sethe's house to exorcise it, the fine line between ludicrousness and grandeur is deftly negotiated.

But after that, Beloved suffers still another lapse. Trying to raise Sethe's spirits after another traumatic loss, Paul D. tells her, "You are your own best thing" and "Love your heart." Is this what you say to a woman who has lost three of her children, killed one of them herself, and been forced into earthly hell by a semi-demonic spirit?

Beloved isn't just a mess. It's a mess made out of mush.