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Summary: Oprah, Danny Glover and Akosua Busia together again!
Review: Even this white man enjoyed this film. I've seen this film four times so far. Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover work together again since the film "The Color Purple". Akosua Busia who helped write the screenplay for "Beloved" also was in the film "The Color Purple" as "Nettie". Good cast all the way around. Kimberly Elise has the right face and brings about truth and honesty in her role. Kimberly Elise has a style all her own. Thandie Newton should have received an Academy Award nomination for her role as "Beloved". She played disabled or should I say retarded very convincingly.
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Summary: A Beloved Film
Review: Johnathan Demme is a brilliant director (proof: this film and "Silence of the Lambs") who is capable of creating eerie spectrums of character and images that will continue to haunt long after the film is over. Oprah Winfrey (to all of our shock and amazement) is an unbelievably wonderful actress (proof: this film and "The Color Purple") who should appear in many more films, but, undoubtedly, is preoccupied elsewhere. I nearly wish she would stop her talk show and become a full-time actress, she needs to make more feature film appearances. Danny Glover is able to show an indefinable range of character (proof: this film and the fact that he has also been in the "Lethal Weapon" 4some as well as appear in a role as profound as "The Color Purple"). Thandie Newton is a rising star that brightens up the screen even with a dark and moody performance, and should be noted as a powerhouse screen presence in the making. Every player brings a large helping of vision to this book-turned-film adaptation. There are so many layers in this 3-hr drama that you could (and I have) watch it 5 times and take an entirely different view away once it has ended. Brilliant film. Sorely snubbed by Oscar when it came to production, writing, and acting. This is what a real film is supposed to look like. Filmmakers: watch and learn:-)
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Summary: AN OVERLOOKED WORK OF ART
Review: It's a shame more people didn't seen this film. Everything about this production brilliantly shines like a finely cut diamond. The music, the acting, the photography, the script--all of it is vastly superior to most big-budget Hollywood fare. As a ghost story it is truly chilling. As a human drama it is extremely moving. As great cinema it is unforgettable. Some scenes are so disturbing that you want to look away, but you don't because the artistry of the filmmaking has you enthralled. GONE WITH THE WIND was a good movie for it's time. BELOVED is a great movie for all time.
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Summary: This movie shows the real meaning of what slavery was
Review: After the first thirty minutes of watching this movie, I was ready to turn it off but fortuately I did not. The sequences are a little confusing to begin with but are all brought together in the last five minutes. The last five minutes made this movie one of the best and emotionally revealing movies I have ever seen. After watching it, I discovered it was based on a true story. The ending may not be as revealing if you already know the true event this was based upon. I highly reccommend this movie. We learn about slavery in history class in high school but sometimes don't learn about what it really means. The horror of it is truly expressed in this movie.
I can't say anymore because I don't want to ruin the experience but it demonstrates how in extreme circumstances such as slavery, some actions cannot be judged.
Rating:
Summary: Classic
Review: This is a story that needs to be told,our story. It's not just an African American story but a story of America-one that belongs to all Americans. There are so few good movies or books for that matter that describe/show? what has been done and is being done to one segment of our people. Beloved is that pain, that guilt, that warped being that American history has constructed. She is symbolic of what has resulted from the historical and present treatment of African Americans in this country by us. You don't believe it? Read "Trouble In Mind" by Leon F. Litwack>
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Summary: Goosebumps galore
Review: This movie is among my very favorites to watch. Anyone who does not sit on the edge of their seat while watching this movie ...must be asleep/or dead.This movie scares my socks off.I won't go into detail (the other reviewers already did that). IF you like/love a movie that stars Oprah Winfry,as i do, I promise you will never forget it....you will be compelled to watch it over and over again.Genius is the only word that came to mind as i sat numb from the terror i had just witnessed.This movie shocks me EVERY time I watch it....BELOVED....GENIUS.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the WORST movies ever made
Review: Beloved is by far one of the worst movies ever created by a Hollywood studio. It is slow, the story makes little sense, and in the end goes nowhere. The acting is terrible, especially Oprah and Danny Glover. Watching this made me feel like the people listening to Robert Hays character in the movie airplane as he tells his life story. One ends up hanging themselves, another is about to burn themselves up, all because his story rambles and is dull dull dull. Well, watching this movie will make you want to throw yourself off a cliff or something, it is that terrible.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: What a wonderful viewing experience! Great cast, great script, great direction, great everything! Marvelous in every regard!
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Summary: Well-intentioned movie doesn't quite work
Review: Most movies are made for purely commercial reasons. Others are a labor of love. It's easy enough to dissect the former. Those in the latter category, such as Beloved, are more challenging for a thinking critic, especially when the labor does not produce a very good movie. Oprah Winfrey, the undisputed Queen of the TV talk shows, co-produced and starred in the film. It is based on the book by the award-winning writer, Toni Morrison. It has a remarkable cast. Any story revolving around America just before and after The Civil War is probably uncommercial. The period may have seemed glamorous to the general public in Gone With the Wind in 1939, but that remarkable movie was made two decades prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Nowadays, that period of history is one that is painful for either race to dwell on. Slavery was rightfully ended, but equality came much too slowly. Beloved is the story of Sethe [Winfrey], a former slave who escaped to freedom in Ohio during the war. She is forced to leave behind her family and the man she loves. What she cannot escape are the nightmare memories of her former life. Her new world is soon marred by a tragic event which will haunt her [literally] for the rest of her life. Sixteen years after she begins her life in Ohio, another ex-slave from the same plantation shows up. He is Paul D. [Danny Glover], who knew her well then, but knows nothing of her life as a free woman. She takes him in, and he tries to bring some joy to the life of her young daughter, Denver [Kimberly Elise]. Their lives are soon thrown into turmoil by the arrival of a girl with no memory of her past. This is Beloved [Thandie Newton], who may or may not be Sethe's other daughter. Sadly, the picture is marred by several technical flaws. The main problem is with the source material. Some authors write in a manner which is not possible to translate easily to film. Toni Morrison, for example, uses flashbacks, dream sequences and illusions. The movie's writers, as well as director Jonathan Demme, seem lost as to how to handle these important elements. The result disappoints who have read the book and is almost indecipherable to those who have not. While I admire brevity, a quality I do not possess, I rarely care how long a movie runs, as long as it has something to say. Beloved takes nearly three hours to unfold. A more inspired production could have said it all in two hours or less. Still, there are moments that shimmer, thanks largely to the artistic cinematography of Tak Fujimoto. Rachel Portman wrote an evocative musical score. Both Kimberley Elise and Thandie Newton are young actresses of immense talent. Both do what they can with their confining roles. Winfrey and Glover have some other great movies to their credit, and we assume they will have more in the future.
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Summary: It's so hard to do a book of this density justice...
Review: but they do make a good go of it. Winfrey's acting, the sets, the costuming-- all of these things are fabulous. I'm not sure that you would understand where Beloved comes from if you haven't read the book, or where she goes. I'm also not sure you quite get the relationships between women, which are crucial, in the movie. You also miss the difficult but genius "middle passage" section of the book. BUT I know, books and movies are different. This is a ghost story, and just didn't leave me feeling creepy enough. I don't know what would have been better, but something was missing of the chills down the spine variety. Still, this is a great movie, and I think Oprah's version of the "tree" on Sethe's back is probably worth watching the movie for in itself. And, one thing that made sense finally for me which I didn't get in the book was when the men "took her milk." A big lightbulb went on in my head-- oh!! So it's definitely a watcher, if not a "buyer."
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