Beloved

**Beloved** is a 1998 American psychological horror drama film directed by Jonathan Demme which was released on October 8, 1998 by Touchstone Pictures.

It is based on Toni Morrison's 1987 novel of the same name.

## Plot

Set in Ohio in 1873, the film follows former slave named Sethe, her haunting by a poltergeist the visitation of her reincarnated daughter and the appearance of a mysterious young woman that she takes into her home.

## Cast

* Oprah Winfrey as Sethe
* Danny Glover as Paul D.
* Thandie Newton as Beloved
* Kimberly Elise as Denver
* Hill Harper as Halle
* Beah Richards as Baby Suggs

## Production

Prior to Toni Morrison's receipt of the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, "Beloved", Oprah Winfrey purchased the rights to the novel in 1987; the translation to film then occurred a decade later.

There was a conflict over screenplay credit with Akosua Busia demanding sole credit and saying Adam Brooks and Richard LaGravenese got too much. In the end, WGA gave credit to all three of them. Busia said they were all little more than script doctors.

To prepare for her role as Sethe, Oprah Winfrey went through a 24-hour simulation of the experience of slavery, which included being tied up, blindfolded and left alone in the woods.

Lauryn Hill was cast in the title role of Beloved, but she dropped out before filming began, when she became pregnant. The role was ultimately given to Thandie Newton.

During promotion for "Beloved", Thandie Newton said to Vogue magazine: *"Here we were working on this project with the heavy underbelly of political and social realism, and she managed to lighten things up ... I've worked with a lot of good actors, and I know Oprah hasn't made many films. I was stunned. She's a very strong technical actress and it's because she's so smart. She's acute. She's got a mind like a razor blade."*

Beah Richards (who played the role of Baby Suggs) was in declining health during production and she had to breathe from an oxygen tank between takes.

### Filming

Principal photography for "Beloved" began on June 25, 1997 and ended on December 18, 1997.

The street scenes were filmed in the Old City and Manayunk neighborhoods of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Some other scenes were shot on a soundstage in the city's disused (and later demolished) Civic Center.

Shooting also took place on the north side of the Schuylkill River within Valley Forge National Historical Park in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and at the Landis Valley Museum in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Shooting was done in a field in Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area in Cecil County, Maryland, at a spot just east of Big Elk Creek and just south of the border with Chester County, Pennsylvania.

The State of Maryland subsequently compiled a location map and photographs of the buildings constructed for the film in Fair Hill NRMA. Other filming locations also included New Castle, Delaware.

## Box Office

"Beloved" grossed $8,165,551 during its opening weekend, ranking at #5 at the box office and and was beat out by "Bride of Chucky" (which ranked at #2 and grossed approximately $11,830,855 during that the same weekend). Overall, it grossed $22,852,487 on an estimated budget of $80,000,000.

Oprah Winfrey has gone on public record stating that she ate 30 pounds of macaroni and cheese when she was informed the Saturday after the movie opened that *"we got beat by something called Chucky."*

Winfrey also claimed that the failure of "Beloved" at the box office was the worst moment in her career and brought her into a major depression. According to her: *"It was the only time in my life that I was ever depressed, and I recognised that I (was) depressed because I've done enough shows (on the topic). 'Oh, this is what people must feel like who are depressed.'"*

Director Jonathan Demme has commented: *"Beloved only played in theaters for four weeks. It made $22 million dollars—I think that's a lot of money. And the only reason it left theaters after a month was because the Disney corporation that released the picture wanted all the Beloved theaters—where we were doing very well, in a number of situations—but the Walt Disney company wanted those theaters for Adam Sandler's Waterboy. So, we were told that they were gonna bring us back at the end of the year, and they didn't. But the picture did very respectfully. It was in the top ten its whole life."*

"Beloved" remained in theaters into the holiday season, and by December 27, 1998, it had grossed $22,746,521. The film later returned to theaters for two weeks in March of 1999, grossing an additional $110,000. It was also no longer listed in the top 10 on the box office chart by the November 6–8 weekend and had dropped to the rank of #12 on the chart by this point in time.

In 2013, Oprah Winfrey reflected on the film, saying: *"To this day I ask myself, was it a mistake? Was it a mistake to not try and make [it] a more commercial film? To take some things out and tell the story differently so that it would be more palatable to an audience? Well, if you wanted to make a film that everybody would see, then that would be a mistake. But at the time, I was pleased with the film that we did because it represented to me the essence of the Beloved book."*

## Critical Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, "Beloved" has a "Fresh" rating of 78% based on 67 reviews with an average rating of 7.1\10. The site's consensus states: *"A powerful, emotional and successful film adaptation of the original novel."*

On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 24 critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews."

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave "Beloved" a rating of 3½ stars out of 4, praising its cast and emotional weight of the storylines. He wrote that its nonlinear narrative *"coils through past and present, through memory and hallucination, giving us shards of events that we are required to piece back together. It is not an easy film to follow. ... The complexity is not simply a stylistic device; it is built out of Sethe's memories, and the ones at the core are so painful that her mind circles them warily, afraid to touch."*

Lisa Alspector of the Chicago Reader wrote: *"This terrifyingly beautiful movie blends metaphor and stark social commentary to achieve a spontaneous grace."*

Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the film *"doesn't sanitize its tale of African American loss and survival -- the way Steven Spielberg's “The Color Purple did -- but delves deeply, heartbreakingly into an American tragedy."*

Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan said: *"Beloved is ungainly and hard to follow at times, like the proverbial giant not quite sure how to best use its strength. But that power exists, present and undeniable, and once this film gets its bearings, the unsentimental fierceness of its vision brushes obstacles and quibbles from its path."*

Entertainment Weekly said that Oprah Winfrey's performance in the film is full of *"stoic anger, and individual moments have ferocity and pull, yet you're always aware of them as moments."*

The Dallas Observer stated: *"Beloved tries to be an anthem of the spirit, and that's just about the most difficult--and unfilmable--thing you can attempt in the movies. Demme stretches things out to epic length, but what was really needed here was an epic imagination."*

Walter Addiego of the San Francisco Examiner wrote that the film's dramatic payoff is *"a bit disappointing"* and it is *"often overwrought."*

Ella Taylor from the L.A. Weekly said: *"Though Beloved sags into repetition after two of its three hours, this beautiful movie is suffused with an intensity that holds our attention for the conclusion."*

J. Hoberman from the Village Voice wrote: *"Dutiful as it is, Jonathan Demme's Beloved doesn't succeed so much as it abides…it moves in leisurely fits and--unencumbered by style or narrative complexity--never loses its forward momentum."*