"I apologize for my appearance. But I have had a difficult time these past several years." My review of 12 Years a Slave

I fully expected to come out of 12 Years a Slave depressed. I mean, it's a serious American story about a man who died in relative obscurity. That's to say, no one knows when he died or what he died from. His life in the public record dried up during the 1860s. I walked out of the movie stirred in a visceral way. I've seen Shame, which had a similar effect, but this was essentially a story about survival, anger, and hope.

MID-POST POST SCRIPT: BE FOREWARNED that I tried not to spoil and instead express how I felt about each characters' role after looking back

It's incredibly difficult to watch in certain points. It's not like a horror movie, it's more like a tornado: brutal and beautiful. It's in this weird place of "is it even entertaining?" It's gripping, It's scary, and it's hard to even describe. But it does stick with you in a way that's good. You will cry because it's devastating from a storytelling, cinematic, and human way. I walked away thinking, "every scene goes on way too long,"  and I think that's the point. It doesn't let you off the hook with any levity like Django Unchained. You just walk away with it being very real and effecting. 

When you watch movies that are biographical or even a non-fictional adaptation of a character, sometimes you can see the gaps. Everyone did a great job. 

I put an asterisk next to those people who I think will get nominated for awards. To explain:

*Paul Dano: Played John Tibeats, an overseer, and Creeped. Me. The. Fuck. Out. He was strongly unlikable as a character and you root against his character. His loathsomeness is due to him feeling inadequate next to Chiwetel's character. You see them come to a head and feel a strong reaction to their interactions.

*Paul Giamati:  Played Theophilius Freeman, a slave trader. He's a personal favorite of mine as an actor and is only in this movie for 5 minutes, tops. He plays a salesman first and a person second. I felt like this guy could've been selling steaks. He cared about the people he sold like he said, as far as a coin's length. It was cutting.

*Michael Fassbinder: Played Edwin Epps. A drunken, rock-star, psychopath. He's so uncomfortably evil that I at once was afraid of his character and hated how he existed. He was a mean man who sought power and control. His use of the bible, his threats of harming everyone to get the slaves to do what he wanted: scary. He was so uncomfortably physically close with Solomon and Patsy, that it made my skin crawl. His brutality was always simmering. He did a great job at portraying a lunatic.

*Sarah Paulson: Played Mary Epps, a villainous lady, the wife of Fassbinder's character. I mean, I didn't like one bit of her as a character, but she played her role so well as a person who was a product of 1) their time, and 2) a horrible marriage. It's hard to sympathize with her as she can't sympathize with anyone else. She sought a lot of times to trap people into revealing them-self. If you watched The Sopranos, you can remember how Carmella Soprano turned a blind eye to what was going on. You could empathize with that a little. This woman did more than that and embraced the time she was in.

Benedict Cumberbatch: Played the first slave master, William Ford, a generally kinder person. Ultimately, he doesn't hold on to Solomon and sells him to Fassbinder. You feel like he's a nice guy, but you can't forget that he's complicit, by not doing more/being able to do more, in the problems of that era: denying liberty, splitting up families, not acknowledging the truth.

*Adepero Oduye: Played a character, Eliza, who explains through dialogue, that though Ford is not as bad as others, he's still complicit as an owner of people. She explains her own story, which was heartbreaking to 1) watch what happens, and 2) hear what happened before-hand in exposition. Also, if you want to watch a great movie, she was in an Indie I saw called Pariah, about a teenage lesbian embracing her sexuality and the trouble that comes along. She's someone to watch.

*Lupita Nyong'o: Played Patsy. She was the object of desire for Fassbinder's character. My heart hurt for her, because she had so many horrible things happen that I could only think that death might be her only reprieve. I will say, that watching her in this movie was draining. You could see the life pulled from her as the movie went along. Her and Solomon's ending brought tears to my eyes because, while it's over for one person, it's not over for her.

Brad Pitt: Played Samuel Bass. I will say this softly, and if you see the movie, you might get it, but it's the only "flaw" in this movie. And it's not a horrible flaw, it's just a little side-eye creating. Brad Pitt, the producer, cast himself as the abolitionist carpenter who helped. Now, casting himself as the good guy was fine, but I thought it was a little too... on-the-nose? self-aggrandizing? It's not bad, just a little distracting. All said, he did a great job in a taut movie. He spoke for what you're thinking about liberty, freedom, pride, bondage, and the inappropriateness of ruling over another person who wants freedom.

*Chewitel Eijiofor: Played Solomon Northrup, He had a role that was 1) difficult, 2) hard to watch, and 3) compelling to watch. I'm sure Anthony Mackie could have done a good job, but wow did he fill the shoes in this movie. There was a power to his presence, his dialogue, and his silence. There are long moments with the camera about 2 inches from his face and you understand this. I will credit both he and the director for really maintaining the focus of keeping the story on this man's journey and humanizing him in such a way that you can't ignore how brutal that period of his life was.

You could put it on par with Roots as a galvanizing movie about the same subject. Whereas that movie was emotionally powerful, this one is both emotionally powerful and physically jarring. I think there may be an issue with some people who wonder if an American should've directed this. That's a valid point, except that slavery wasn't just an American activity. I think the right person put this movie together. I think the right people were in the right roles to tell this story. It was a well-told story. While I may buy it and may watch it again, I feel like it's a movie I'm glad to have seen.

Essentially, this movie told the story about the prohibition, specifically of the slave trade from outside sources. When you see stories about alcohol's prohibition in Boardwalk empire, you see the machinations of what happens to keep those systems going. The underhandedness, the unfair handshakes, the stripping of liberty. The system existed, it just went further underground. There are parallels to modern slavery: labor and sexual. To child labor and factory work in 3rd-world countries. 

I'm realistic when I think that I know this won't change the world. I know it struck me. I needed a drink to shake the emotions loose. I needed to write this to get some first impressions out. Kudos to Brad Pitt for getting this movie made. I know it's not an easy subject or story to watch, but I think he can walk away being proud that he put his name on an almost perfect movie. Maybe when I watch it again I'll get a different impression. We'll see. Definitely see it if you can