12 Years a Slave (McQueen, 2013)

When looking at the subject matter of a film, it is tempting to judge its merits on the importance of the story its telling. Dramas about war are rarely bashed in the critical mainstream and historical epics are generally given good reviews as long as the subject feels important and necessary. I believe that this was the case in 2012 when Lincoln achieved exalted status despite being mostly speechifying men sitting in rooms and nothing else. If a film presents all the right parts: human struggle, evil oppressors, lots of crying, etc., it tends to be praised as one of the best films of the year. Underneath all those necessary parts, however, is sometimes very little of substance, making the film seem like torture porn just for the sake of it. It is for these reasons that I went into 12 Years a Slave with a skeptical eye. The film had been praised as the contender to beat at the Oscars and was being tauted as a life-changing experience by some critics. I wasn’t sure if I was going to have another Lincoln experience, in which people would make grand, overwrought proclamations about slavery set to a sickeningly sweet score.