Where Philadelphia is a morass of compromises, Demme's adaptation of Toni Morrison's much-lauded novel Beloved is willfully obdurate, a fierce, at times inexplicable, magical-realist masterpiece... The director's rhetorical subtext: have we lost the ability to engage with cinema and the other arts as simple spiritual expression? Beloved is that query's timeless, challenging, and necessary answer.
Keith Uhlich
October 28, 2004