Regency Enterprises, River Road Entertainment, Plan B Entertainment,
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Lupita Nyong’o, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt, Alfre Woodard, Garret Dillahunt, Scoot McNairy, Adepero Oduye, Michael K. Williams, Chris Chalk, Taran Killam, Bill Camp
The true story of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who was a free black man living in New York State. Solomon was an accomplished musician and was tricked into a job where he was captured and sold as a slave. He was subjected to both incredible kindness and extreme cruelty as were those around him before he meets a Canadian abolitionist, Bass (Brad Pitt) who changes his life forever.
The movie is based on the memoirs of Solomon Northup himself and is set in the pre-Civil War days. Events like that happened from time to time, and certainly no one can tolerate the depiction of the brutality of slavery. Not to make light of it, but since the slaves were valuable property, the extreme damage they did in this movie would surely depreciate the value of their property. I doubt that most slave owners would treat their “tools” like this. IF they did, they were really stupid. But at the same time, the times were horrible and treating human beings as property is disgusting. Still, I feel the filmmakers went out of their way to lay a guilt trip on us, and that is the most uncomfortable thing about watching this film. It’s hard not to feel pretty bad about yourself while watching this. It’s a mind numbing story, and there’s now way to come out of this unscathed. Regardless of whether or not it’s historically accurate in this case, It’s still a powerful message. I felt somewhat torn, all in all, and so I don’t really know how to rate this one. It’s really well done, and yet, I was torn as to whether I really was impressed that much. I chose 4 stars for the really good acting and for the screen play. It is a real depiction of life in the South pre-Civil War. But I was not completely blown away with the story. I can’t really put my finger on it. It just left me unsettled, which is what I guess it was supposed to do.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
