12 Years is a compelling success

Liberty Theatre

12 Years A Slave

****

Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael K. Williams, Michael Fassbender.  

Director: Steve McQueen.

Rated: R

Showing: Fri 2:30pm, 6pm, 9:30pm; Sat 2:30pm, 6pm, 9:30pm; Sun 2:30pm, 5:30pm; Mon-Thurs 2pm, 7pm.

Runtime: 134 minutes

Biography, drama, history.

We expect the lashings, the leg irons, the cruelty and injustice of it all. But what Steve McQueen’s brilliant 12 Years A Slave does for our understanding of that “peculiar” institution is the utter hopelessness of those enslaved.

It lets a GPS / smartphone-addicted generation understand what it was like to not know where you are, to realize the helplessness of attempting to run away or steal paper to write a plea for help.

And it forces those who would rationalize the era’s mores and religious “justification” for human beings enslaving and torturing one another to see that there is no rationalization for it, that there were many who could tell right from wrong, even back then.

Chiwetel Ejiofor conjures up just the right measure of dignity and refinement as Solomon Northup, a New York musician, husband and father who was tricked into taking an engagement in Washington, D.C., along the border between free and slave states.

Yes, this really happened in 1841: a black American who had never been a slave was kidnapped, smuggled south and sold into slavery. He struggled to keep his spirits up and his hope alive, even as others around him committed suicide or fell into inconsolable weeping at having their children sold away from them.

The beauty of this movie is in how we identify with Northup and come to understand the awful effects his loss of liberty had not just on him, but on the moral relativists and outright sadists who ran machinery of slavery. Even a so-called “good master” (the terrific Benedict Cumberbatch plays one) had to embrace an “it’s just business” myopia about what he was doing to other human beings. Even a “legitimate businessman” (Paul Giamatti) had to close his eyes to the unspeakable cruelty of breaking up families, to become less human by treating other humans as livestock.

And then there were the monsters. Paul Dano is hateful perfection as the classic low-class overseer, brutal to his charges because he needs somebody to look down on and lord over. A wild-eyed Michael Fassbender plays an alcoholic Louisiana landowner who keeps an enslaved paramour (Lupita Nyong’o, a revelation) whom his resentful wife (Sarah Paulson) insists on forcing her husband to torture in his sober moments.

And Alfre Woodard plays a one-time slave who has become mistress of her house, not above keeping slaves of her own, but capable of empathy and kindness toward those still confined.

Ejiofor keeps Northup’s emotions close to the vest as he endures the unendurable — hard labour, from cotton picking to cane harvesting — and harder punishment. Northup’s music is one way he clings to his humanity, but even that isn’t enough. Ejiofor (Kinky Boots) never lets us see hate or fear in the man’s eyes, only resignation broken by slivers of hope that he might somehow escape this hell.

It’s a challenging, serious and scholarly film, not the blacksploitation burlesque that was Django Unchained. McQueen (Shame, Hunger) and his stellar cast take us on a difficult journey, a sometimes awful and only faintly inspiring odyssey that will make you want to avert your eyes. It is to their great credit that we never do. 

Neptune Theatre

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

***

Stars: Idris Elba, Naomie Harris, Terry Pheto. 

Director: Justin Chadwick.

Rated: PG-13

Showing: Fri 7pm; Sat 2:30pm, 6:30pm; Sun-Thurs 7pm.

Runtime: 139 minutes

Biography, drama, history.

As Nelson Mandela, Idris Elba towers over the rest of the cast. That’s literally true and perfectly accurate. Mandela was tall, as is Elba (of the Thor movies and Takers). And Elba manages both the voice and a hint of the presence of the great man.  He tends to tower over the movie, as well, in this comprehensive but generally dry account of one man’s journey from upwardly mobile attorney to activist to revolutionary to statesman. 

Speciality Theatre

47 Ronin

**

Stars: Keanu Reeves, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ko Shibasaki.

Directors: Carl Rinsch. 

Rated: PG-13

Showing: Fri-Sat 2:30pm, 6:30pm, 9:30pm; Sun 2pm, 4:45pm, 7:30pm; Mon 7:30pm; Tues-Thurs 2:30pm, 7:30pm.

Runtime: 118 minutes

Action, adventure, fantasy.

The oft-told Japanese tale of the 47 Ronin, disgraced samurai who regained their honour by avenging their dead master and sacrificing themselves in the process, earns an ignominious Keanu Reeves reconfiguring this holiday season. Keanu’s ronin romp is streaked with supernatural touches — battles with a witch, digital demons and special effects giants. It’s a staggeringly slow, tin-eared fiasco that doesn’t deserve the flourish of an ending this medieval tale generally earns. You catch the final act and you forget that first-time feature director Carl Rinsch has no experience or apparent skill for this material and that his leading man is every bit as stiff as he. 

Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas

***

Stars: Tyler Perry, Chad Michael Murray.

Director: Tyler Perry.

Rated: PG-13

Showing: Fri 2:30pm, 7pm; Sat 6pm, 9pm; Sun 3pm, 6pm, 7:15pm; Mon 2:15pm, 2:35pm, 7pm; Tues-Thurs 2:15pm, 7pm.

Runtime: 122 minutes

Comedy, drama.

Madea gets coaxed into helping a friend pay her daughter a surprise visit in the country for Christmas, but the biggest surprise is what they’ll find when they arrive. 

ALL REVIEWS BY MCT