Powerful, disturbing, and moving

Rating: 9/10 (31 January 2014)

Solomon Northup, a respected free black musician and family man in 1841 New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana and the film, adapted from the book he produced afterwards, recounts his experiences during the 12 years until he regained his freedom.
Although this film has elements which did not come from Northup's book, everything in it is true: slaves were treated like this. The vile physical abuse shown very graphically in this film was not perpetrated by every slave owner, but the fact remains that slaves were property with no rights, and things like the naked examinations before being sold, splitting up families and so on - not physical abuse, but abuse nonetheless - are simply part and parcel of what slavery is (I make this point as I have noted some people defensively commenting that the film perhaps overstates its case - well, it doesn't).
Having established that the subject matter is factual, dramatic, emotionally involving, and powerful, how well does the film deal with conveying it to the audience? Pretty well, actually. Despite the fact that the content is very strong and, in some ways, borders on cliché, most of the key figures are well drawn and believable human beings, with some excellent performances - Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon holds the film together with a moving performance, but he is matched by Michael Fassbender as Epps (who, frighteningly, believes that what he is doing has God's approval) and Lupita Nyong'o as the unfortunate Patsey.
This is strong stuff, but it engages the audience emotionally. And let us not forget that while slavery may have been abolished in the west, that doesn't mean that is not still practised elsewhere.