☆☆☆
It's practically impossible to dislike Harriet, an earnest and entirely adequate biography of Harriet Tubman, the former slave whose heroic accomplishments in freeing 70 black Americans from chains and guiding them to freedom along the Underground Railroad is the stuff of legend (and, it needs to be mentioned, sorely neglected history).
With such a sweeping, death-defying story, why, then does Harriet feel leaden? It's not entirely inert, especially not with Cynthia Erivo in the title role, plus the always-riveting and vibrant Janelle Monáe in a key supporting part. It's beautifully shot in Virginia and meticulously crafted, with exquisite period sets and costumes. But it also has a screenplay (by Lemmons and Gregory Allen Howard) that, with a couple of tiny excisions, would have been right at home as a TV network movie of the week in the 1980s. It hits all the important points of Tubman's rise from slavery to leadership – including slave owners who do all but twirl their mustaches in villainy – and ends just as things are really getting good; here's a rare movie that could have benefitted from another half-hour.
The film's music score is an odd one; it mixes traditional and modern in ways that the movie itself doesn't match, and is a distraction. Similarly distancing is the movie's too-clean cinematography, which has the flat sharpness of television; the film's lush production is not served well by this visual decision. The resulting film is one you feel you should watch, not that you want to watch.
Viewed Dec. 29, 2019 -- DVD
With such a sweeping, death-defying story, why, then does Harriet feel leaden? It's not entirely inert, especially not with Cynthia Erivo in the title role, plus the always-riveting and vibrant Janelle Monáe in a key supporting part. It's beautifully shot in Virginia and meticulously crafted, with exquisite period sets and costumes. But it also has a screenplay (by Lemmons and Gregory Allen Howard) that, with a couple of tiny excisions, would have been right at home as a TV network movie of the week in the 1980s. It hits all the important points of Tubman's rise from slavery to leadership – including slave owners who do all but twirl their mustaches in villainy – and ends just as things are really getting good; here's a rare movie that could have benefitted from another half-hour.
The film's music score is an odd one; it mixes traditional and modern in ways that the movie itself doesn't match, and is a distraction. Similarly distancing is the movie's too-clean cinematography, which has the flat sharpness of television; the film's lush production is not served well by this visual decision. The resulting film is one you feel you should watch, not that you want to watch.
Viewed Dec. 29, 2019 -- DVD
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