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.

This terrifyingly beautiful movie blends metaphor and stark social commentary to achieve a spontaneous grace.

The performances of all the central and secondary characters match the passionate intensity of the film's behind-the-scenes collaborators.

Jonathan Demme's potent adaptation of Morrison's novel may be substantial, but it is also engrossing, a movie that plays at times like a combination of “Gone With The Wind” and “The Exorcist.”

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.

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

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

Has a great deal going for it. [16 October 1998, p. 57]

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]

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

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.

They've taken material with the power to insinuate itself directly into the realm of the imagination, and made it strangely inert and lifeless.

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

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.