Beloved (1998) Critic Reviews

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.Read the full review

The film had a curious effect on me. I was sometimes confused about events as they happened, but all the pieces are there, and the film creates an emotional whole. It's more effective when it's complete than during the unfolding experience.Read the full review

Beloved is for those who want substance from a movie, and don't mind facing uncomfortable truths in the process.Read the full review

Often a cinematic marvel and often the year's most pungent movie medicine, Beloved always feels as if it's carrying the world's weight, and maybe it is. [16 October 1998, p. 7E] Read the full review

What is surprising -- remarkable even -- is that Beloved arrives onscreen with a minimum of dull virtue, gagging uplift and slick Hollywood gloss.Read the full review

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.Read the full review

Powerful, depressing and very, very long. At close to three hours, it virtually enslaves an audience, which may be part of the point.Read the full review

Winfrey's performance is full of stoic anger, and individual moments have ferocity and pull, yet you're always aware of them as moments. Read the full review

Beloved works on its own but is much enhanced by familiarity with the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. In so ambitiously bringing this story to the screen, Ms. Winfrey underscores a favorite, invaluable credo: read the book. Read the full review