Impeccably acted, beautifully shot, hauntingly scored, and dreadfully disturbing, this story of a free man of color kidnapped and sold into slavery is Oscar bait and reminds us never to forget the atrocities committed on our own shores some 150 years ago. The remarkable Chiwetel Ejiofor (last blogged in Salt) stars as Solomon Northup, a real man who wrote the book about his own experiences on which this is based. Lupita Nyong'o makes a spectacular feature debut as the unforgettable Patsey. Some of the notable slave-owners are Michael Fassbender (last in Prometheus), Benedict Cumberbatch (most recently in Star Trek: Into Darkness), Sarah Paulson (Mud), and Paul Dano (Looper) as a hired hand. Brad Pitt (Moneyball) has pretty good billing for three scenes late in the movie, albeit pivotal ones. That's probably because he co-produced. The poster has nine stars top billed. The last two are Paul Giamatti and Alfre Woodard with one scene each. I wish I had noticed the cameos by Quvenzhané Wallis (Oscar-nominated for Beasts of the Southern Wild) as young Margaret Northup--if she had any lines I don't recall--and Dwight Henry, who played her father in Beasts, as Uncle Abram--didn't spot him either.
When I wrote about British director Steve McQueen for his last movie Shame, I said "his next one looks interesting," and linked to the imdb page for this one. We predict some Academy action added to his existing 29 wins and 30 nominations. John Ridley (wrote the story for David O. Russell's script in Three Kings (1999) and TV shows both comedy and action, among other projects, including a Jimi Hendrix project coming out later) adapted Northup's book.
The lovely soundtrack is purportedly by Hans Zimmer (The Lone Ranger) but an album hasn't been released, even on youtube (here is a ten minute compilation which may or may not be from this movie). In fact, the "official soundtrack," "curated by John Legend" and available for streaming here, contains less than four minutes by Zimmer! Composer Nicholas Britell is credited with many more tracks.
Unlike the director of photography Sean Bobbitt's last picture, The Place Beyond the Pines, this one probably won't give you motion sickness--Jack and I sat in the back of a fairly small theatre just to be safe. But there are many dark and low-contrast scenes so we do recommend watching this on a big screen, not at home later on video. If you can stomach the violence (I was able to block most of it with my hand), you'll surely want to see it before the Oscars March 2, 2014. In case you don't trust my word on this, critics are averaging 96% and audiences 94 on rottentomatoes.
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