If you like true story peroid peices then 12 Years A Slave is for you. It stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup, Lupita Nyong’O as Patsy, Micheal Fassbender as Edwin Epps, Paul Dano as Tibeats, Sarah Paulson as Mistress Epps, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Willam Ford.
12 Years A Slave is true story about Solomon Northup who was a free man in 1840’s Saratoga New York with a wife and 2 kids who played the violin. He was abducted into slavery and 12 Years is about the 12 years he spent as a slave.
12 Years A Slave is an great peroid biopic. Expert acting and directing drive it along with expert sound design, cinematography and score. It is brutal and very hard to watch at multiple times with scenes that depict what happened in the time period with excruciating accuracy.
Unlike other biopics of this kind, 12 Years does not shy away from showing what happened. There are several brutal whipping scenes and sudden instances of harshness that occur out of seemingly no where. At times, it is a bit too brutal, but the reason is respectable. Something else that adds to this brutal aspect is the sound design. If your theater is loud when you watch this, then even if you look away you will still hear it, adding to that aspect. If you can deal with scenes like that, the rest of the movie is great.
The acting is fantastic. Chiwetel Ejiofor is excellent in the lead conveying all the sorrows that Northup has been through in just his eye,s without saying anything multiple times. Micheal Fassbender is incredibly evil, and Lupitia Nyong’O is fantastic as the tortured slave.
The cinematography is also great and beautiful and haunting at different times. The score is also great and emotional even with some borrowing from Inception and 1 weird and loud sound cue. Overall, 12 Years A Slave is a great, hard to watch, fantastically acted, well scored and shot true story.
12 Years A Slave is rated R for violence/cruelty, some nudity and brief sexuality. I give 12 Years A Slave a yearly A-.
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