Heartrending true story of slavery

Rating: 10/10 (10 November 2013)

This year's sure thing for Best Picture. I don't personally think it's the best picture of the year, but no doubt it'll be one of the more deserving of that award (it ranks #6 on my 2013 list as of right now). It's an utterly devastating picture, doubtlessly the most thorough, accurate and brutal portrayal of slavery in the American South ever committed to film. Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as a free man in the North. While touring as a fiddler with circus performers, he is kidnapped by slavers and transported to the South. He becomes the property of plantation owner Benedict Cumberbatch, who is a fairly benevolent master, but he soon crosses ways with his overseer (Paul Dano), and Cumberbatch is forced to sell him to a much crueler man (Michael Fassbender). Fassbender is keen on raping his slaves, in particular Lupita Nyong'o. Ejiofor, who at this point realizes that the only way he can survive is to keep his head low, becomes entwined in the drama between Fassbender, Nyong'o and Sarah Paulson, playing Fassbender's wife. Ejiofor has been a fantastic actor for over a decade now (I first noticed him in Dirty Pretty Things, but he also had a major role in Amistad, which I never did see), but this is the role he'll be remembered for. He gives one of the subtlest performances in recent memory. In many ways, he has to. His role is all reaction - while he does get a couple of big emotional scenes, mostly he's playing a man who has to keep his head down. He's an educated man, and if his masters catch wind of it, they could very well kill him. What he witnesses, though, in addition to what he suffers himself, is so horrifying that it becomes impossible not to react. Of the rest of the cast (which also includes Brad Pitt and plenty of other familiar faces), I think the only other one who deserves accolades is Nyong'o, who just kills it. Adepero Oduye, as a woman who refuses to stop weeping for her children, who were sold elsewhere, also impresses. In my estimation, none of the white actors really deserve too much praise. Cumberbatch and Dano are probably the best. Fassbinder's likely to get all the awards attention, but I thought he was pretty unsubtle, almost to the point of mustache twirling. McQueen's direction is very subtle, almost to the point where you won't even notice how good it is. One major complaint I have is that you don't really feel the time pass. If it weren't called 12 Years a Slave, you wouldn't even think more than a couple of years had passed by the end of it. Honestly, it could have been longer. But, then, it can be such a harrowing watch that I don't know that I'd want to see any more. I wouldn't say it was painful to sit through, though. I'd see it again in a heartbeat. It's rare you get a film so genuinely powerful.