Beloved: Four Generations, Too Many Violins

Is it worth your time?

If you're into the kind of movie that treats a family heirloom like a religious artifact, you'll probably get a kick out of Beloved. It’s not for the impatient, though. If you need a plot that moves at warp speed, stay far away. This is a slow-burner that insists on showing you every single generation of these musicians, whether you actually care about them or not.

There’s a weird, dusty charm to how this thing is put together. It reminds me a bit of the pacing in The Land of Long Shadows, where the atmosphere does all the heavy lifting while the characters just kind of exist in the frame. Sometimes, they just stand there. For a long time.

The Music of It All

The family tree stuff is fine, I guess. But the movie really lives and dies by the musical numbers. Some of them are genuinely lovely, but others? They just drag. There’s this one scene with a violin that feels like it lasts for three days. You can practically hear the camera crew shifting their weight in the background.

It’s not as punchy as Gold and Grit, which knew exactly when to cut the scene. Here, the director seems terrified of moving on. They want you to feel the history.

Odd Little Moments

• That one shot of the piano keys? It’s clearly out of focus for a second, but they kept it in. Human touch, I guess.
• The makeup on the older characters looks like it was applied with a trowel.
• There’s a background actor in the third act who is clearly just waiting for his lunch break. He’s staring at a wall for the entire duration of a monologue. It’s distracting, but I couldn't stop watching him.

It’s nowhere near the intensity of Quo Vadis?, obviously. It’s much quieter, almost to a fault. Sometimes I think the movie forgot it was a drama and tried to be a historical documentary instead.

If you watch this, do it on a rainy Sunday. Don't expect to be blown away. Just let the music wash over you and try not to notice the places where the editing feels like it was done by someone who lost their scissors.