Reviews are beginning to roll in for the new Harriet Tubman biopic “Harriet.” I will post excerpts and links to this Civil War and Reconstruction Era film as they are published. The first comes from New York Times critic A.O. Scott. It is a positive review, with some caveats. You can read the whole review here. Here are a few excerpts from the review:
When I first started out as a film critic, I used to get regular mail — actual written letters, in envelopes — from a reader who wanted to know why Hollywood hadn’t made an action movie about Harriet Tubman. I didn’t have a good answer (other than the obvious answer), but the question was a good one. Tubman’s remarkable biography has all the right elements: danger, surprise and the kind of against-all-odds heroism that brings people to the movies.
“Harriet,” directed by Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou,” “Black Nativity”) and anchored by Cynthia Erivo’s precise and passionate performance in the title role, might not be exactly what my correspondent had in mind, but it is a rousing and powerful drama, respectful of both the historical record and the cravings of modern audiences. The story of Tubman’s escape from enslavement on a Maryland farm and her subsequent leadership in the underground railroad is conveyed in bold, emphatic strokes. Villainy and virtue are clearly marked, and the evil that Tubman resisted is illuminated alongside her bravery.
From the Conclusion:
“Harriet” isn’t an immersion in horror like Steve McQueen’s “Twelve Years a Slave,” and it doesn’t have the imaginative sweep and complexity of literary depictions of slavery like Edward P. Jones’s “The Known World,” Colson Whitehead’s “Underground Railroad” or Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.” It is more like one of those biographies of historical figures intended for young readers: accessible, emotionally direct and artfully simplified.
The exception — the aspect of the film that suggests some of the strangeness and intricacies of a reality that is both unimaginably distant and not even past — is Erivo herself. Perhaps as a result of an injury inflicted by her enslavers when she was a child, Harriett is subject to religious visions, “fits” that impart the gift of prophecy. (Joan of Arc’s name is invoked, in addition to Moses’s.) This is a kind of super power, but Erivo’s performance is grounded in the recognizable human emotions of grief, jealousy, anger and love. There is also a formidable intelligence at work, both tactical and political, and an elusive, almost mysterious quality as well. This is someone you want to know more about.
Read the review from The New Yorker Magazine.
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