Movie Review #58 12 Years a Slave (2013)

- My guilt runs deep

Oscar nominated film from Steve McQueen 12 Years a Slave. A movie based on a true story of a black man who was free by the laws of the time and quickly became a slave under the servitude of the white men down in the south of the USA. Well I've only seen one other McQueen movie which I actually reviewed for this blog (Shame (2011)) and I really liked it, it didn't hide much emotionally or physically in a sexual fashion; thus I come into 12 Years a Slave with the idea that the movie won't hide much of a brutal time for African Americans.

12 Years a Slave is up for 9 Oscars, Best Picture, Performance by a Male lead, performance by a male in supporting role, female in supporting role, director, Best Writing in a Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published, Editing, Production design and Costume design. I'll get into specifics down below, but I don't think any of the actors are taking home an Oscar and while I think our guilt may give the extra push to give 12 Years a Slave the best picture, I'd really rather it not get it, though I can't properly say who should win it as I'm still a few shy of seeing all the nominated films. The design awards I can easily see them getting it was certainly something that can't really be argued against. It looked and felt the way it should through production and costume. I don't think it's going to be a blow out against 12 Years a Slave. I wouldn't put money down one way or the other but I don't feel strongly for this movie.

I found the movie to be lacking in a lot of things, even though yes they surely showed the plight of african americans, even those who had been freed were never really freed. Which even reading that sentence boils my blood against the stupidity of my own race. I never felt for the characters in the movie. I know and understand what they went through but their acting and the story telling I found incredibly medicore. The beginning of the movie is not told in chronilogical order and caused an array of confusions for me. Our lead Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) clearly has a sort sexual encounter and I have no idea when it happened chronilogically I'm afraid. I understand that sometimes your introductions are slow so perhaps you show a more plot orientated scene, but I don't feel they even did that. They just showed other scenes and lead for me to be more uninterested in the story they have to tell. While one knows the movie must take place over the span of 12 years, I felt it took place over the course of maybe half a year or so and then near the end did a long leap for the 12 years. I am unsure about this flow as it comes off as unbelievable that he was a slave for years throughout the movie. He was a fresh face and then near the end 12 years were up. I also felt they didn't show enough of the harshness nor did they make the antagonist (in this case I mean solely Edwin Epps played by Michael Fassbender) while yes he was an evil man, his overbearing and hatefilled Mistress Epps (played by Sarah Paulson) was overbearing on him and clearly controlled him, and lessened the impact that Epps has as a villain in the movie, you could feel bad for him, especially during the drunken fight he has with Solomon.

Whoa Shia LaBeouf? Nope it's Paul Dano

It was a difficult movie for me to watch, as in some regards it should be, but I felt my own mind was making it harsher than the film itself. The main whipping scene is harsh and overstays, which I think is a good thing, but it's a single scene and I felt more needed to be seen, even if it was in the background or Solomon was forced to witness more. I also felt our lead was incredibly lucky at almost every turn, it's based on a true story so maybe he was lucky but as a slave within the movie I found he got away with a lot of talk back that I feel probably would have been punished more harshly back then with his slave position.

Just explaining the mixup.

I found this movie to be just a little above a pass. I just felt that my own guilt from being a white male effected me more than the movie did and as an Oscar contender I expected it to move me by itself and not use my own superficial guilt to move me. The flow and sense of time within the movie were uneven throughout and within the confines of the movie I felt just as bad for Edwin as I did for Solomon, I'm afraid which dampened the core strength of the movie for me.

I give it 6/10

PS: Nobody expects surprise Brad Pitt.