Beloved is a 1998 American gothic psychological horror drama film[2] directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, and Thandiwe Newton.

Based on Toni Morrison's 1987 novel of the same name, the plot centers on a formerly enslaved woman after the American Civil War, her haunting by a poltergeist, and the visitation of her reincarnated daughter.

The film garnered mostly positive reviews, and both Danny Glover and Kimberly Elise received praise for their performances.

An angry poltergeist residing in the family home terrorizes her and her three children, causing two of them to run away forever.

In retaliation, Schoolteacher and his nephews brutally whipped Sethe, leaving a "tree" of keloid scars on her back.

She crossed paths with Amy Denver, a white girl who treated her injuries and delivered her child, whom she named after her.

Sethe is detained for an unknown amount of time, and it is later revealed she was saved from hanging by the prominent Cincinnati family the Bodwins, who knew Baby Suggs.

Beloved soon throws a destructive tantrum and her malevolent presence causes living conditions in the house to deteriorate.

The women live in squalor and Sethe is unable to work, having become physically and mentally drained by Beloved's parasitic nature.

Sethe sees him and, reminded of Schoolteacher's arrival, attacks him with an icepick, but is subdued by Denver and the women.

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

[8] The State of Maryland subsequently compiled a location map and photographs of the buildings constructed for the film in Fair Hill NRMA.

[citation needed] During promotion of the film, Thandiwe 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 ...

Oprah Winfrey went on public record stating that she ate 30 pounds (14 kg) of macaroni and cheese when she was informed the Saturday after the movie opened that "we got beat by something called Chucky.

"[12] She also claimed that Beloved's failure at the box office was the worst moment in her career and resulted in her suffering a major depression.

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.

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.

"[19] Comparing the film and the novel to the Henry James' novella The Turn of the Screw, he noted the use of supernatural elements "to touch on deep feelings" as well as the deliberate lack of a final explanation.

It is a remarkable and brave achievement for Demme and his producer and star, Winfrey, to face this difficult material head-on and not try to dumb it down into a more accessible, less evocative form.