Antebellum, the first feature by writer-directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, comes out swinging with a William Faulkner quote: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” A long tracking shot lays out time and space: a plantation in what looks to be the titular pre-Civil War American South. The protagonist briefly appears, but the focus is on a rumble in the background. A male slave, presumably a caught runaway, is fitted with an iron yoke while his wife attempts to flee. She does not make it—a gunshot cracks across the country sky. Underneath the stylized veneer of the sequence lies a declaration: This will be a thriller of witness and resistance.
Janelle Monáe stars as Veronica, a successful present-day author who finds herself cornered in a realm of terror that upends her very reality. She wakes up in a cotton plantation dressed in period clothing and at the mercy of the owner, Elizabeth (Jena Malone), and the Confederate soldiers quartered there. Significantly, nothing of the land surrounding the plantation grounds is shown. What sounds at first like a fascinating adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Kindred instead fumbles the narrative ball and goes ham-handed into a fully predictable ending that (without spoilers) we’ve all seen before.
One may think of M. Night Shyamalan, though not just because of the hoodwink lurking in the third act. The Signs director is patient, with a penchant for lingering for effect. Bush and Renz are just as caring toward their characters, savoring every side-eye, whisper, and wail. They’ve got a four-pronged storm of performance at their disposal. Monáe wows in the lead role—there’s great gravity to her words and silence. Malone counterbalances the star’s composed restraint with the zealous theatricality of a Carol Burnett Southern belle caricature, even when delivering cringe-inducing lines like “Accept what you are—you ain’t nothin’ but a cotton picker.” And then there’s Gabourey Sidibe, radiant in the comedic function of Veronica’s bestie, effortlessly navigating the microaggressions her character faces. Likewise, Kiersey Clemons, who blew away genre fans last year in J.D. Dillard’s festival darling Sweetheart. She’s commanding and doe-eyed as fellow plantation captive Julia, but also stuck with more sledgehammer dialogue: “Oh, you think being quiet is being strong, huh? What has that ever gotten us?” If only the filmmakers trusted their actors to convey the messages of this story, instead of burdening them with obvious, explanatory lines and speeches.
Antebellum has a lot to say about race, class, and gender—issues inextricable for Black women. From snooty hotel clerks to waiters recommending cheap items on the menu to backhanded “You’re so articulate!” compliments, each interaction Veronica has with white people in her “real” world is laced with offense at her identity as a 1) Black 2) woman who is 3) doing well enough for herself to be seen, by them, as someone rising above her station. (Obviously, offenses become far less passive-aggressive on the plantation.) But the themes are distributed with a heavy hand throughout the narrative. When a colleague of Veronica remarks during an unnaturally academic conversation in a hotel lobby that “the unresolved past can certainly cause havoc on the present,” all that’s missing is a wink to the audience. Turns out the filmmakers don’t trust us, either.
The spoon-feeding is especially disappointing given the film’s technical mastery. Steadicam and serpentine camerawork fuse imagery of the past and the present together seamlessly, and match cuts handle the rest. Cinematographer Pedro Luque departs from the largely interior visual storytelling of past horror features he’s worked on, like The Silent House and Don’t Breathe, to capture the sprawl of cotton fields and the city. Aside from a pair of mirrored slow-motion sequences bookending the story, the style is stark. The film’s monsters are front and center, loud and proud, and as comfortable with coming out of the shadows as their recently emboldened real life counterparts. As slaves toil in the heat, the overseer’s smug encouragement to “let the sound of Confederate victory bring joy to your labor” rings as callously as the “Shut up and dribble” vomitus filling the evening news in the wake of the NBA players’ strike. The Confederate line is exhaustingly evergreen for certain parties: Northern enemies are “traitors” to America, slaves are to comply under unjust rule or violence is justified against them, etc.
The brutality is a hypersensitive subject. While Black voices across social media and beyond point out that videos of police violence and extrajudicial killings of Black citizens shouldn’t be shared in order for Black humanity to be acknowledged, co-director Bush counters (in an introduction to the film) that because the North American landscape is “at this incredible racial reckoning,” the vicious imagery of Antebellum “confronts the truth of our past and its ugliness.” While the onscreen violence inflicted upon Black bodies in the film is returned in kind, it doesn’t make the beatings, rapes, and murders any easier to watch—they’re not supposed to be. Bush and Renz set out to make a film of reckoning, and as terribly unsubtle as it is, they have succeeded. The mechanics fail to match the details of character and theme, but Antebellum has its finger on the pulse of an American populace that hears the traditional song of racial injustice and seeks to bump the needle.
66 Comments
“bad twist we’ve all seen before” + “one may think of M. Night Shyamalan” So… it’s the present day, isn’t it.
Yeah they kind of figured that was it when they brought up Shyamalan.
They could’ve at least Westworld-ed it and made it a future themed resort for awful whites in a dystopian future. Monae could be a recently un-cryo-frozen trauma patient or something.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they couldn’t get the right to Kindred and just kind of scrambled to bash out a new script at the last minute.
given the writeup it sounds like Butler’s people had the right idea if so.
It’s not even Shyamalan’s idea. The whole “it was a historical re-enactment all along” angle was first explored in a terrible YA novel I read in elementary school (Running Out of Time—the creators actually tried to sue Shyamalan when The Village came out), and I knew it was a bad twist (just, completely illogical) in third grade.
Oh my god, I was wrong / It was 2020 all along
Begrudgingly starred, even though I’m legit furious this stupid review spoiled it.
Kinda appropriate sentiment given the themes of the movie and what happened in real life.
I’m wondering and genuinely trying to find a straight answer on this. Like, I’m not going to bother watching this mediocre movie and I’m just curious.
Looks as though the only people to have seen it so far are critics, who aren’t going to spell everything out. That’ll change in due time…
well, could someone please spoil it in these comments when they’ve seen it? thanks.
I feel like they do it about as clearly as one can in a new film review–and I’m grateful for it. All of the ambivalence from the mealy-mouthed evaluations of the other critics suddenly make sense now.
The Variety review actually lays out the entire story, basically.
https://variety.com/2020/film/reviews/antebellum-review-janelle-monae-slavery-1234754308/
of you don’t watch it you are racist.
I was just thinking, ‘Is this The Village?’.To quote Tom Arnold in True Lies: “Ballsy, but stupid.”.
Honestly I’d be more interested in the movie if that wasn’t a third-act twist, if they found out like, 10 minutes in and it’s just part of the story.
That’s not even a twist though, that’s just the premise. The trailer makes it explicit.
Turns out plantation owners can be killed by water.
A little kid reads the back of a cereal box to save Janelle from a grass monster. She gets carried off by a giant eagle.
And baseball bats!
The real racism was the friends we made along the way
Doesn’t it lay it out straight off the bat?“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Yes. I haven’t seen the movie either, but… yes.
Fuck that’s a lazy, tired twist. What a waste of time.
And it turns out Confederates can be defeated by water! And were dead all along anyway.
I assumed they discover tap water causes racism.Note to self: Read all comments in a day old discussion before posting.So I now assume plants cause the racism. Anyone? Anyone?
Yes. It’s spoiled explicitly in the opening moments of the film because they think that’s what foreshadowing is. Also – the trailers kinda made it obvious too.
Juuuuuuust came here to say that. I’ll award extra points, albeit not many, if there are warthog monster costumes in there somewhere. That, or an unconvincingly autistic Adrien Brody.
Oh weird, Jena Malone is an exact anagram of Janelle Monae!!Don’t test it, just trust me FOR ONCE
So close. “Le Jena Malone” works though!
No it is an EXACT, PERFECT ANAGRAM and any arguments to the contrary are GARBAGE
Is there anything you want to tell the group?
Psst….I think we should tie him(her?) down first…
Jello-o me Nana E.Think of the marketing opportunities!
1
Jeremy’s… iron.
Filmmaker: I have this great idea for a movieExecutive: OK, what is it about?Filmmaker: Get this, it stars Jena Malone and Janelle Monae Executive: OK, what is it about? Filmmaker: Jena Malone and Janelle Monae are almost anagrams!Executive: I love it! Here’s a pile of money.
Does she flip back and forth between her normal life and the plantation, like it seemed from the trailer, or is she on the plantation for good once she gets there?Other than that detail it certainly seems to be The Village.
Sooooooo its actually modern day right? How does this exactly work? Its not some cutting edge satire about how some things haven’t changed? I’m now imagining a really shitty week at Colonial Williamsburg. God I’m noticing a lot of the covid delayed films are not worth the wait.
What the fuck???? Could you have more obviously spoiled this film?? FFS, NOT COOL NOT COOL NOT COOL.Remove the references to M. Night (“Hoodwinked?” Just couldn’t resist, could you?) and the sentence near the beginning that starts off, “Significantly, nothing of the land . . . .” That ALONE was enough for me, dammit.Ffs, it’s not like we have few enough movies coming out this year to begin with, you have to ruin the few we ARE getting? I’m not saying it’s a good twist or that it couldn’t even be guessed by the stupid Faulkner quote. I’m saying if it’s so shitty it could be guessed by the Faulkner quote, DONT INCLUDE THE FAULKNER QUOTE, LET ALONE A WHOLE BUNCH MORE OF THE MOST OBVIOUS INDICATORS I’VE EVER READ IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.Yeah, I’m mad. This is possibly the only movie I’ve been looking forward to this whole cursed year. So of COURSE some asshole had to ruin it. Of course of course of course.
Maybe you should not have clicked on a review article then?
I am seriously regretting coming here for a review. I’m pissed off too.
The movie starts with the Faulkner quote as literally its very first image.The movie gives itself away. Calm down. Why on earth are you reading a review of a movie you’re looking forward to anyways, before seeing it? That’s your first mistake.
Why would anyone “sort of make Kindred” when they could just make Kindred, which is practically a perfect book and would have been an amazing series?
It’s possible they couldn’t acquire the rights to Kindred.
Yes, most likely, I know at one point someone had the rights to it, but I feel like that was some time ago. Kindred is one of those books that I hate to see sullied. The other three are Dune, the His Dark Materials Trilogy, and World War Z…soooooooo
I’m guessing after those you love the original Star Wars trilogy, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Percy Jackson, just Greek mythology in general, Star Trek, Death Note, Jaws, Alien, Rambo, Community, the first two Carthaginian wars, the internet, Napoleon I, George H.W. Bush, the Garden of Eden, the First Reich, and Green Lantern.
Muddled premise you got there, bud.
It’s like Tenet. You’re just supposed to feel it or something…
No, just those three. I take your point. And it made me laugh. But just those three specifically egregious adaptations. (and while I’m excited for new Dune I do have a soft spot for how bad-good the Lynch Dune was)
I’m going to assume we’re looking at a The Village twist and risk certain scorn to say that…I liked The Village. It had the feel to me of a modern Twilight Zone and I dug it. Haven’t seen it since it came out and I know it’s the beginning of a period where everyone decided Shyamalan was a hack, but I legitimately enjoyed it
Yeah, I actually liked The Village too. And I’m assuming the “twist” in this flick is the same as in that one.
Yeah definitely getting that vibe
I also liked The Village. I thought it was the last of his initial run of good films before he crawled too far up his own ass.
Yeah The Happening was seriously bad times but I thought The VIllage was cool
The village has a plot that’s incredibly similar to a 1990s YA novel called running out of time. I read the book as a kid and when I saw the movie I immediately remembered that book.
Is the book any good?
Same.
I like her a lot, but Gabourey Sidibe as a slave is a stretch.
They didn’t all engage in arduous farm labor. She could be some kind of house slave, like a cook or something.
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Yes it takes place in present day. Yes it’s bad.
I know this is pedantic, but if their are Confederate soldiers quartered at the plantation, it’s Bellum, not Antebellum. And I’ve figured out the twist and realize it’s not really either, but still.
another terrible “Black” geared film?? lol big surprise.
kinda wild to say “without spoilers” sandwiched between two lines that completely telegraphs the twist
After I watched this, I turned to my husband and said “that wasn’t very good, but I want to watch it again immediately!”