It's Good, But Not Great

Rating: 8/10 (14 March 2014)

12 Years a Slave introduces us to Solomon Northup as a slave, unknown as to what year, before giving us a flashback to the free life he had as a family man in New York and earning a living as a violinist, who is then hired by two men for a job trip to play in Washington, to only then be drugged, kidnapped and sold into slavery, heading to New Orleans.
For the duration of the film we then go through the time line of Solomon's time in slavery, going through a few slave owners, from actually he isn't that bad for a slave owner in William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch) to you have just enter a place where you'd rather be dead than end up here in the Epps household (Michael Fassbender and Sarah Poulson). Things take a turn for the worst at the Ford household as John Tibeats (Paul Dano) resents Solomon for being on good terms with William and for some of his ideas (like the transporting logs on the river) and begins to verbally abuse him at every opportunity, till it escalates to a beat down, with Solomon whipping Tibeats. Then Tibeats and his friends lynch Solomon, who is then rescued by Ford after a lengthy time (and a lengthy one shot take) and for his own safety, is sold off to Edwin Epps.
Epps sees Solomon and every other black person at his household as his property and believes he has the right to do whatever he pleases with him, be it making then dance for him to provide entertainment or whip them for not providing a certain amount of weight gathered from cotton picking. Just as horrible as drunkard Edwin is his wife (Sarah Poulson) who is envious of her husbands attentions and praise at their slave named Patsey, which leads down to one of the most brutal moments in the film.
12 Years a Slave is a film that will be discussed about for a long time to come, in particular in certain scenes. Them certain scenes will be the one between William Ford and slave salesman Freeman (Paul Giamatti) as Eliza's children are taken away from her to go to separate owners, to the brutal moment of Solomon having to lash Patsey in front of the Epps.
The film is unapologetic in its approach to the story as after all, it is based on a true story and mostly what you see is what happened. So for the same reasons as The Wolf of Wall Street, some people may find certain moments in 12 Years a Slave to have a similar repetitive pattern (Solomon stands up for himself, gets abused verbally/physically, moves to different slave owner) and, this could be just me or the years of the gore horror genre we've been treated to the last decade, you are just numb for some of the beatings, till you get to that pivotal one with Patsey getting one of the most visually brutal lashes captured on camera. It's a very good film but you could argue that it is too true to the source material in that you aren't as emotionally invested as you should be (didn't really care for the majority of the other slaves, even with them being played by talented actors such as Chris Chalk and Michael Kenneth Williams as they are literally come and go in minutes), the only other two that last longer than ten minutes are Patsey and Eliza. Agreed partially with it being one of the best films ever made with the way it is shot but in terms of story, it's brutal and in your face but all the while lacking development for the duration of the film.
Everyone though does a terrific job in their roles. Chiwetel Ejiofor gave everything in his role as Solomon Northup and deserved his Oscar nomination, showing us a man with pride and dignity slowly deteriorate away as the years go by till you see it in his eyes, that one moment where he accepts that he is going to be 'Platt' forever. Michael Fassbender gives in to his role as Edwin Epps with such menace and terrifying portrayal of one of the many slave owners that caused such pain. Lupita Nyong'o deserves that Oscar over Jennifer Lawrence. You cannot honestly tell me that Lawrence gave a better presence in American Hustle than Nyong'o did in this film. She brought the emotion and then some.
Steve McQueen was always going to be around for some time as a filmmaker after Hunger and Shamed, but now this will be the film be potentially the most discussed that he will ever do.
A brutal, honest portrayal of Solomon's memoirs with great performances from the main cast, though the hype may have ruined my expectations for the film. It was very good but not a bona fide classic for me. The film is at least worth the two hours of your time.