jonathan demme’s _beloved_ , based on the book toni morrison , is a study in skillful literary adaptation .
on the one hand , the film manages to recreate key moments from the novel , evoking morrison’s pragmatic narrative style without using her authorial voice .
on the other hand , beloved omits the some of the finer details of the book , favoring an ambiguously defined back story upon which to build the story’s main events .
this choice is a smartly made one , for it creates an open space in which the story’s wide range of emotions can gestate and grow .
indeed , the impact of the film is so protracted that much of it cannot be felt until long after the end credits have rolled .
_beloved_ takes place in the second half of the 19th century , during the so-called reconstruction era after the civil war .
for newly-freed slaves , it is a time of confusion and turmoil .
oprah winfrey is sethe , a slave who escaped a kentucky plantation and took her children to an ohio farmhouse , where she hoped the terror would end .
what she did not know was that it would follow her there , and remain with her long after the physical threat had vanished .
_beloved_ ultimately tells the story of sethe’s search for forgiveness , one long-hampered by an unforgettable sin .
the film starts off on a dreary day ten years after sethe’s escape , as a violent , unseen energy rocks her dilapidated farmhouse .
invisible hands terrorize her family , flinging objects across rooms , shaking tables , rattling floorboards .
sethe’s sons run away , perhaps for good , leaving sethe and her daughter denver to fend for themselves .
demme’s matter-of-fact handling of this supernatural element is just one of _beloved_’s intriguing aspects .
all of the characters take for granted that ghosts are real .
when paul d ( danny glover ) — a former slave who escaped kentucky along with sethe — arrives at the house eight years later and is confronted with the ghost’s hellish visions , he doesn’t run in terror .
instead , he asks who the ghost is .
as in morrison’s novel , demme quickly establishes that the horror of the story will not come from the fact of the ghost itself , but from the terrifying past in which the ghost was created .
sethe is the one being haunted , but the ghost in the house is the least of her fears .
in fact , the ghost is one of the reasons she chooses to stay .
the story takes an bizarre turn with the appearance of beloved ( thandie newton ) , a young black-clad woman who appears on sethe’s front lawn , leaned christ-like against a tree stump .
sethe and denver immediately take to the rasping woman and try to nurse her to health .
they know not who she is , but that doesn’t matter .
only paul d is suspicious of the stranger .
little does the family know that beloved will bring about many changes , and force sethe to release a guilt she has held onto so urgently for eighteen years .
winfrey is arguably beloved’s greatest asset .
she inhabits the role of sethe so convincingly it is hard to believe this is the same woman who shines brightly on a tv talk show .
lisa gay hamilton does an impressive job in the emotionally demanding role as the younger sethe , whose appalling actions make her the disturbed woman we see eighteen years later .
danny glover is affable as the sympathetic paul d , as is kimberly elise as denver , sethe’s wanderlusting daughter .
as sethe’s sage-like mother-in-law old baby suggs , beah richards authoritatively commands every scene in which she appears .
the film’s least palatable choice of casting is unfortunately that of the role of beloved herself .
thandie newton plays the glassy-eyed girl with a demented fervor which is endearing at first , but which becomes off-putting and unintentionally laughable by the end .
departing from the honed aesthetic he used in such films as _the silence of the lambs_ and _melvin & howard_ , director demme has used a bit of dramatic overstatement to get across the vivid descriptions in morrison’s novel .
totemic camera shots and color-saturated scenery are decidedly uncommon in demme’s films , but the few he uses here work to the film’s benefit .
_beloved_’s most memorable scenes are those of baby suggs’ gatherings in a forest clearing , where the bright yellow-greens of nature entrance the viewer as much as suggs’ words do .
for the most part , though , demme maintains his trademark directorial neutrality .
this , combined with morrison’s equally frugal method of storytelling , may make _beloved_ somewhat of a challenge to watch , even to those familiar with the book .
though the film compliments the book extraordinarily well , it falls short in allowing the sort of accessibility one usually expects from a film .
nothing is spoon-fed to the viewer .
morrison’s novel is just as enigmatic , but unlike a movie , a book can be put down to allow the various undercurrents and themes to churn and absorb .
the movie begins like _poltergeist_ , and ends like _the color purple_ , with shades of _the scarlet letter_ and _little women_ somewhere in the middle .
taken as a whole , beloved is a disquieting , one-of-a-kind experience , one to be viewed with guards down and spirits in abeyance .