A Story About Cycles and Futility

Rating: 10/10 (10 December 2013)

I went into this film anticipating solid directing (Steve McQueen) and good acting (Ejiofor, Cumberbatch and Fassbender), if an unoriginal story. Every few years, it seems, we get another installment of "White Guilt: the Movie." I was not disappointed by the former, and pleasantly surprised by the latter. The film follows the slave story we all know(bearing not a little resemblance to Frederick Douglass's more widely known memoir), but with the twist that the protagonist was born free and kidnapped into slavery. We see Solomon object that he is free then beaten into submission, and made to accept his name(Platt) and his station. He travels first to a slave auctioneer's, played by a very understated(and possibly underused) Paul Giamatti. He is auctioned off at a higher price for his ability to play the violin. He goes to a compassionate owner played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who makes excellent use of screen time to turn an otherwise one-note character, into a conflicted man of principles. He gains favor with his master for his intellect, while also running afoul of the wicked overseer(played gratingly by the ever-punchable Paul Dano; seriously I was hoping for Daniel Day Lewis to show up with a bowling pin) for the same savvy. There is a disagreement that leads to the overseer trying to flail him. He instead turns on and whips the overseer. He ends up at the end of a noose, but is saved from death, only to dangle for a squirmingly long amount of screen time, unflinching and unyielding in it's brutality as he shifts from toe tip to toe tip to keep his windpipe intact. This act serves as the apex of the cycle. Master Cumberbatch must then sell him to keep a lynch mob from killing him, but the only master who will accept him is a cruel one. Enter Michael Fassbender, chewing his way through every scene and reveling in the evil Master Epps. He and McQueen could've been content in letting the characterization end there since Fassbender creates it masterfully, but they add in a touch of self-loathing and doubt that makes him a real, albeit horrific, person. His inclination toward his favored slave, Patsey, puts our protagonist into predicament. The cycle comes back around as Platt is forced whip Patsey in the worst flaying scene since "Passion of the Christ." He becomes the reluctant purveyor of the lash. It is now that he breaks his violin, before the talisman that linked him to his old life and his intelligence, and resigns himself to his yoke. He joins in song wholeheartedly, while before he sat in silence. He has become the archetype slave. Earlier on, he attempted to send a letter by way of a white hired hand that had drank himself into debt, who betrayed him to his master. It is later, through trusting a second hired man, a forward-thinking Canadian abolitionist(played to great distraction by Brad Pitt, sounding much more like Benjamin Button than any Canadian, that he actually does regain his freedom. And, as before he had to have the name Platt beaten into him, he is coaxed into revealing his true identity to the sheriff, and taken away home. His reunion scene with his family leaves lingering warm feelings; until the scrolling text reveals that no one paid for this crime. A fantastic film that chose earnest over preachy, and visceral over cliché. The performances were spot on(aside from Dano's screechy one-note and Pitt's aforementioned out-of-place cameo), and deserve both Fassbender and Lupita Nyong'O(Patsey) at least a nomination for supporting actor/actress, while Chiwetel Ejiofor definitely should get a nod for best actor, and hopefully start getting some long-overdue credit. McQueen, meanwhile, remains artful, if not gruesome in his depiction of slave life. He and Nicholas Winding Refn are contending for art-house shudder king. An excellent piece, definitely bringing something more than a rehash of a familiar story, even if the story is familiar.