Only two films this year have truly moved me in a fundamental way. The first was the exceptional Short Term 12 which I declared at the time was the best film of 2013. The second is the equally magnificent emotionally devastating 12 Years a Slave a film I suspect could easily end up in a two way race with Gravity for Best Picture at the Oscars. Driven by the best performances of the year bold directing and a compelling true story that reminds us of our nation s shameful inhumane past it is a film destined to enjoy a reputation as one of the greatest films ever produced about slavery.
Budgeted at $20 million 12 Years a Slave can probably expect to turn a profit when it goes into wide release in a couple of weeks. Some advance forecasting has the film headed for $1.5 million this weekend in limited release (just 18 theaters) with others suggesting figures only slightly lower. Much will depend on whether the advance word about the film helps bring out audiences the film s highly positive critical reception (it currently enjoys a 96% rating at Rotten Tomatoes) is matched by equally enthusiastic audience response to the film. As one of the presumed front runners in the Oscar race it will continue to get plenty of press attention in the coming weeks and months too.
So all of this should translate into at least modest financial success in the long run. How much higher it goes beyond that remains to be seen obviously but it ll be tough to predict much based on the limited release figures. But this year hasn t seen many modestly budgeted films for adults that generated box office approaching $100 million range so far. Some like Short Term 12 and Mud had very strong early buzz and overwhelmingly positive critical and audience responses (Short Term 12 has a 99% at Rotten Tomatoes and Mud sits at 98%) yet unfortunately didn t find a larger audience for whatever reason. Still there seems to be an air of success ahead of 12 Years a Slave s wide release and I think it will be one of the very few lower budgeted movies to enjoy better box office success this year joining the ranks with Lee Daniels The Butler and 42.
12 Years a Slave is adapted from the autobiographical novel Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup a free black man in the Northern United States in the mid 1800s who was kidnapped and forced into slavery in the South where he was held captive for twelve years while his wife and children had no idea what had happened to him. The story was previously adapted by PBS as the television film Solomon Northup s Odyssey in 1984.
Much has been written about the film s graphic depictions of treatment of slaves and it is indeed shocking and hard to watch at times due to the violence inflicted upon the slaves in such explicit detail (one particular beating shows the flesh being stripped off a woman s back as she s tied to a post and horsewhipped). However it is the powerhouse performances that truly drive home the brutality of the situation more even than the intense visual demonstrations of violence.
Chiwetel Ejiofor is mesmerizing so often silent and relying entirely on his face and movements to speak for him. I haven t seen another lead performance from any male actor to top Ejiofor this year. As he adapts to his situation over time we see him exposed to new levels of cruelty and pain we see it building inside him and weighing him down as he tries desperately to hold onto some semblance of hope rather than give in to despair. He will not break but he bends and bends until he is so very close to breaking that it is a struggle for him to get through each day without giving in and giving up.
Ejiofor s interactions with other slaves demonstrates a fascinating arc as Solomon Northup was born free and had a comfortable upbringing that included a good education and a father who was successful enough at farming and land owning to be allowed to vote. While of course prejudices and segregation existed it was a far cry from the treatment of black persons in slave states.
The point being Northup has no idea what to expect or how he s supposed to behave in this new world. He shouts he threatens he insists he will have justice and it earns him vicious beatings and mockery. He says he cannot stand the idea of merely trying to survive rather than living his life but then he sees how easily a slave can be killed by whites and then tossed into the sea and he comes to understand that truly living life again first requires survival. He watches other slaves sometimes resenting them sometimes pitying them telling one grieving mother who lost her children to enslavement elsewhere that she should stop crying aloud and instead contain her feelings telling himself that his current slave owner is a good man at heart but the crying mother reminds him that the man is a slave owner regardless of any other good deeds he might seem to do.
It is amazing to watch Ejiofor express the emotional turmoil within Northup and to create clear distinctions between different periods of his enslavement when he has moved from one stage to another forever torn between the man he is at heart and the man he must pretend to be in order to safely navigate life in bondage. Ejiofor seems certain to win an Oscar nomination and I d guess he s the leading contender.
Lupita Nyong o is a revelation as Patsey a young woman who must endure the lurid attentions of slave owner Edwin Epps (played brilliantly by Michael Fassbender). She seems as destined for an Oscar nod as Ejiofor in what is surprisingly her very first film role. There are few actors capable of exhibiting so much emotion and meaning with a seemingly (but not really entirely) blank stare during moments of terror and abuse or who convey such passionate desperation while trying to remain restrained as if she dares not let the true depth of her suffering break through and reveal itself even while she s begging for relief from her suffering. She is the face of all the special horrors reserved for women under enslavement raped and obsessively controlled by the male slave owner on one hand then hated and tormented by the jealous wife of the slave owner on the other granted dangerous privileges that lead inevitably to hostility and ultimately tragedy.
Patsey s story is Northup s portal into the darkest corners of the slave trade and lead him to confront his own limitations and grief in an arc that brings him full circle back to a moment when he first arrived on a slave ship in Louisiana and felt helpless as he watched another man set free what must it be like to be on both sides of such a situation and what would it be like to have attained a self awareness that leads you to experience grief and helplessness on each side This is the sort of mastery and subtlety of storytelling evidenced in 12 Years a Slave and with acting of this caliber to bring it to life the audience feels the full weight and meaning of such moments.
As mentioned already Michael Fassbender contributes greatly to the sublime performances as Epps. In the grips of some form of madness he takes twisted pleasure in tormenting the slaves often letting his silent ominous presence alone dominate a moment in order to prolong the agony of anticipation before his next outburst. But it is his lascivious treatment of Patsey and his aggressive hatred and distrust of Northup that come to comprise most of his madness and obsessiveness as the years go by.
It s a performance that reminded me many times of Joaquin Phoenix s spectacular turn in The Master moving as it does from almost dreamlike calm to manic giddiness and then suddenly eruptions of rage. Fassbender manages a level of emotional complexity that transcends what could ve otherwise been a simple depiction of pure insanity and evilness. Here is a man who thinks of slaves as subhuman who seems in fact to loath them and even hate the fact he relies on them to do work but who is infatuated in some sinister oppressive way with Patsey. He makes it clear that she is probably more important to him than anything else on the plantation including his wife yet he constantly threatens to destroy Patsey over his delusional and petty jealousies and he seems to always remind himself that in his eyes she is no more than a farm animal.
Turn the page to continue reading my review of 12 years a Slave
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