12 Years a Slave

2h 13min

R

Solomon Northup is certaily a man worthy of story. A tragic story at that. And while time makes us forget more and more about the conditions of life at that time, it is important to remember the that even in the worst of times, and under the worst of conditions their will always be humans, that despite having every reason to become less humane, that overcome the troubled times of their present and are exceptional human beings. Solomon Northup was an exceptional human being. Of course I didn’t really know the man, I’m just going off of what I can find from history, maybe he was an asshole.

I’ll hit Chiwetel Ejiofor a little latter, but what truly makes this one of the best motion pictures of this year, is the deep cast of fine performances. Michael Fassbender plays the kind of antagonist that vengeance seem like too small a reward.  Lupita Nyong, Sarah Paulson, and Paul Dano all fit into the world perfectly. And Brad Pitt gets lost in all of it despite being everything you want him to be. And Garret Dillahunt continues being one of the best actors in Hollywood that nobody would consider one of it’s best actors.

The possibly that this movie might take home best picture is one that I don’t necessarily agree with, because I believe there are better movies. And it is only the second best movie with the number 12 in it this year. But I would not be outraged if it won, far from it. It is a fine motion picture that in no way would make the academy look stupid by selecting. There have been far worse movies that have earned possibly greater accolades.

It is a tough movie to enjoy. The subject matter at hand is hardly ever done for jovial desires. I don’t think it is a secret if I told you slavery is not fun. In fact it is one of the worst things that has ever been sanctioned by humanity. And while I believe it is easy to look back on this time period (that was a mere century and a half ago in the United States) and think about it as the distant past. It is important to remember the monstrosities demonstrated by our ancestors and celebrate with gratitude the hardships of those who had to endure them. The silver lining is that this movie is one the human spirit and the strength that it can show, and also the our minds for all that they can accomplish are still perfectly capable of doing sinister things in the name of power and greed.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is a fine actor. And gives all that he can to this role. I have yet to see a role that Ejiofor doesn’t play well. He might just be second to Daniel Day Lewis in shear acting talent. And in 12 Years a Slave he surprisingly is capped by the story. While he portrays every emotion that a human can, the whole act is suppressed just enough to leave something desired, but that is a product of the role and not the performance.

It was easy to look over any discrepancies of a movie based in a time period where no one is still alive to argue against. Like with The King’s Speech, I bought each scene as if it actually had happened. But I had a hard time watching the Social Network because I felt it was making up things that happened. The point here is that the further away the time period is moved away from the present the easier I just assume life was stylized the way the film makes it seem so. I certainly don’t know much about Solomon Northup, and this story is the most notable thing about him. So I am happy to accept whatever faults this story might have, because it is a tale of humanity and an ode to hope.

This film is better then The Hunger Games, but not as good as Dallas Buyers Club.