Movie Review: Harriet (2019)

Genre: Biographical Drama Thriller  

Director: Kasi Lemmons  

Starring: Cynthia Erivo, Joe Alwyn, Janelle Monáe  
Running Time: 125 minutes  

Synopsis: In Maryland of 1849, Araminta "Minty" Ross (Cynthia Eriva) is a slave on the Brodess plantation. Determined to achieve freedom and escape the brutality of her owner Gideon (Joe Alwyn), she leaves her family and husband behind and flees 100 miles north to Philadelphia. She adopts the name Harriet Tubman and settles into a life of freedom with help from abolitionist William Sill (Leslie Odom Jr.) and business owner Marie Buchanon (Janelle Monáe). Unsatisfied with passivity, Harriet then sets out to help others escape slavery, and emerges as a fearless leader of the Underground Railroad.

What Works Well: Based on actual events, this is a story of one formidable woman risking everything to make a difference and push back against a historical wrong. Director Kasi Lemmons co-wrote the script with Gregory Allen Howard, and captures the essence of Harriet's struggle to free herself, her family, and ultimately her race. Human drama alternates with heart-pounding escapes, and Cynthia Erivo's performance is filled with rage but also fragility, loneliness, and longing. While the focus is on Harriet, her faith-enabled journey is surrounded by the dynamic historical context of a country marching towards a civil war triggered by divergent ideological and economic realities.

What Does Not Work As Well: The narrative borders on a hagiography, with Harriet approaching saintly levels of perfection. The overblown and frequently melodramatic music score does not help.

Key Quote:

Harriet: I'm gonna be free or die.

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Movie Review: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

Genre: Comic Murder Mystery

Director: Rian Johnson

Starring: Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista

Running Time: 139 minutes

Synopsis: During the Covid pandemic, billionaire business tycoon Miles Bron (Edward Norton) invites a group of rich friends to his lavish island resort. The invitees include a fashion mogul (Kate Hudson), a video game streamer (Dave Bautista), the governor of Connecticut (Kathryn Hahn), Miles' chief scientist (Leslie Odom Jr.), and Miles' ex-business partner Andi (Janelle Monáe). Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) joins the party, although no one knows how he was invited. Everyone has something to hide, the intended harmless whodunnit game is quickly derailed, and Blanc has to sort through what is really going on.

What Works Well: This first sequel aims for broader laughs, plus a glitzy and vivid lifestyle-of-the-rich-and-famous aesthetic. Director and writer Rian Johnson aces the opening hour of character introductions and context setting, with the cast members letting loose and enjoying themselves. Miles' glass-dominated resort is a Bondian wonder, and within it the back-stabbing greed and corruption revelations score direct hits on the dilapidating foundations of modern celebrity, business, and political culture.

What Does Not Work As Well: The mystery, murder, and crime solving elements are clumsy and toothless, with flashbacks and shifting perspectives cluttering the flow. Two murders compete for attention with a mediocre sub-plot about a new energy source, while Blanc's deductions are ultimately shoved to the side in favor of a fire-and-destruction climax. The running time is needlessly too long.

Conclusion: The island offers fun in the sun, but the frolicing is unwieldy.



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Movie Review: Moonlight (2016)

A coming-of-age drama, Moonlight is an unblinking look at growing up poor and black in America. The film delivers its message without lecturing, but loses its impact in a drawn-out second half.

The story of Chiron is told in three chapters. The first installment is set in Miami, where young boy Chiron (Alex Hibbert), known as Little, escapes bullying and his drug addicted prostitute mother Paula (Naomie Harris) by hiding in a derelict building. He is found by small-time drug dealer Juan (Mahershala Ali), who provides a father-figure presence despite Paula's protestations, while Juan's girlfriend Teresa (Janelle Monáe) offers a welcoming home environment.

In the second chapter Chiron (Ashton Sanders) is a youth attending high school and subjected to continuous bullying as he becomes increasingly aware he is gay. His friend Kevin (Jharrel Jerome) initiates a first sexual experience, but school bully Terrel (Patrick Decile) gets in the way of happiness.

The third episode starts in Atlanta, where the adult Chiron (Trevante Rhodes) has now adopted the nickname Black and Juan's lifestyle, but has to reassess his life when he hears again from Kevin (André Holland).

Directed and written by Barry Jenkins, Moonlight is a rough equivalent of Boyhood, but from the black, gay and underprivileged perspective. The film delivers a powerful message by saying little, allowing events on the screen to flow in a logical river of the abnormal normality defining Chiron's life. Jenkins effortlessly yet sensitively conveys what it means to grow up deprived of functional parents and in a ghastly neighbourhood.

The film is low key, slow and moody, the aesthetic dominated by the dark blues of night and grim greys of day, nothing in Chiron's landscape from child to adult hinting at any prospects for a lush, bright or positive life. The measured pace serves to highlight the pointed depictions of drug abuse and bullying.

But unfortunately the three chapters are sequentially and noticeably weaker. The film starts strong, Chiron's encounters with Juan carrying a genuine surrogate father-child resonance. The middle is middling, the routine high-school-life-is-hell theme offset by Chiron's burgeoning sexual awareness.

The third chapter is by far the weakest. The film slows to a meandering crawl, Jenkins wrapping up his story as an underwritten snoozefest where long silences are deployed, stretching the running time well past the story's capabilities. Plenty of mumbled, almost incomprehensible dialogue betrays the film's low budget and rushed 25-day production schedule.

Despite being only partially successful as a viewing experience, Moonlight is heartfelt and quietly sad, an essential story that should not need to be told.

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