Cynthia Erivo makes a compelling Harriet Tubman in a slightly shallow biopic of the American hero
Film Reviews Movie Review
Biopics about Black women are rare, and Harriet doesn’t waste an opportunity to make a statement, positioning its titular subject as an intelligent, crafty, and vengeful superhero. There is no second-guessing or doubt in the version of Harriet Tubman presented by director Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou) and her cowriter, Gregory Allen Howard (Ali), and actress Cynthia Erivo spins that unwavering audacity into some riotously crowd-pleasing moments. But Harriet isn’t the deepest portrait of the real-life abolitionist and the daring rescue operations she launched through the Underground Railroad.
The film begins in Maryland in 1849, when twentysomething Tubman, then still a slave and going by her birth name, Minty Ross, is experiencing one of her “spells”—a sort of trance during which she sees memories of the past and glimpses of the future. A deeply religious woman, Minty is convinced that these visions are messages from God, preparing her for upcoming hardships. And that sense of certainty is applicable to all aspects of Minty’s life: She’s deeply sure of her love for her husband, John (Zackary Momoh); she’s consumed by hatred for her master’s son, Gideon Brodess (Joe Alwyn), who has a specific fascination with her; and she knows that she can no longer live in bondage. “I’m gonna be free or die,” Minty says, and when she learns that Gideon plans to sell her, she runs on her own, leaving her husband, siblings, and parents behind.
One hundred miles later, after a tense chase involving white men with guns and dogs, Minty jumps over the Maryland border, the sun illuminating her body as she steps forward into a new life. Once in Philadelphia, Minty reinvents herself, choosing the new name Harriet Tubman (for her mother and husband, respectively) and throwing herself into work with the abolitionist movement led by William Still (Leslie Odom Jr.). Still thinks Harriet’s conversations with God could be brain damage and doubts whether she can recreate her journey from Maryland with other escaped slaves, but Harriet refuses to allow any man to control her. “Don’t you tell me what I can’t do,” she fires back, and the film shifts fully into presenting her as Harriet Tubman, Avenger.
Erivo, who made strong impressions in last year’s Widows and Bad Times At The El Royale, was a controversial choice for the role, as she’s British and not African American, but also because of some previous remarks about Black Americans. But the actor builds a convincingly resourceful Harriet. Her Tony-winning voice radiates grief as she sings the spiritual “Farewell Oh Farewell” to her family before her escape; after Minty has transformed into Harriet, Erivo exudes swagger and confidence as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Erivo isn’t provided many opportunities for reflection—the film leans heavily on desaturated flashbacks to convey the character’s regret, rather than providing those notes for her to play. But she effectively conveys a woman in constant forward motion.
Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman” accompanies a montage of Harriet-led escapes, and Lemmons builds strong tension as Harriet’s work becomes more high-profile and she attracts more adversaries. Her relationship with Odom’s Still becomes repetitively contentious—the script underserves Still in particular, who more than once warns Harriet that they live in “dangerous times”—but Erivo has excellent chemistry with Janelle Monáe, who plays a free Black woman who becomes Harriet’s closest friend. And as Harriet’s father, Ben, Clarke Peters adds welcome humor, with a running gag about him tying on a blindfold before Harriet escapes so he can honestly say he didn’t see her leaving.
Only barely does Harriet incorporate other notable abolitionists, showing but never quite identifying Frederick Douglass (Tory Kittles) and John Brown (Nigel Reed). Maybe that makes sense: This is Tubman’s story, not a comprehensive overview of the movement. But the film expresses implicit doubt that said story can stand on its own, overrelying on Terence Blanchard’s score to dictate emotional cues and cutting away to a parallel storyline involving Gideon, who the movie uses as an all-purpose representation of slavery’s evils and a sounding board at which Harriet can direct her declarations about the importance of freedom. Her conflict with the slaver provides Harriet with its most easily, righteously badass moments; it’s certainly satisfying to see her turn Gideon’s gun back on him. But it’s a problem that the film only really shows us who she is—her strength and resilience—when she’s facing off against him. A better version of Harriet might have kept the focus squarely locked on the real-life hero at its center, instead of defining her through the relationship with the man who once owned her.
31 Comments
happy this has been made & seems to be pretty good.
My wife got us into an early screening with talkback through SAG. It is a decent film, a bit boilerplate in the storytelling, but solid performances, especially by Ms. Erivo. The review pretty much summed up my experience as well.
One other thing. the best thing in the film, other than the lead performance, is the distinct lack of prominent good white characters. There certainly are plenty of white abolitionists in the movie, but they are very subordinate characters, and I thought it was refreshing not to have that Brad Pitt in 12 years a Slave-type character to make people of my complexion smile and say “see, we’re not all bad.”
Ahhhhh that was a delightful bit of self-hating whiteness. All the white people who complained about Brad Pitt’s true-to-real-life character because they worried it would make other white people feel that not all white people were bad. Stupid history being so inconvenient for self-loathing! Couldn’t the filmmakers have invented a black avenger like Ving Rhames in Rosewood!
He wouldn’t be the first true-to-real-life character who became a lazy trope in a biopic because the screenwriting was off, nor the first to be defended by someone using broad brush generalities.
But it wasn’t a “lazy trope”, it’s what actually happened in his life. Should we criticize Holocaust movies for that tired old “liberated by the allies” thing when it would be so much more ideologically satisfying if they liberated themselves?
Pitt’s scenes are taken pretty much word-for-word from Northup’s autobiography.
It’s not self-loathing to recognize you’re being pandered to and, in many cases, talked down to.That said, I didn’t have the same revulsion to the Pitt character as some other people did, he was part of the story and didn’t steal focus away from the central figure. I have definitely had that reaction to other films, however, where it feels like a white character is there not because they add to the story but because they’re a studio note because an executive thought I wouldn’t understand the story without someone with my skin tone gently explaining the themes.It’s not self-loathing, it’s self-respect.
Ehhhhh I think that’s overstated. Dances with Wolves, say, gives viewers a great “in” to a foreign culture via John Dunbar’s character. It’s an effective storytelling device, and I don’t think it’s pandering or condescending
Exactly. Maybe I’m being unfair to Pitt’s character – it could be that his relative star power and acting overbalanced things for me. Maybe Costner in Hidden Figures, as has been suggested elsewhere, or Viggo Mortenson in Green Book are better, more egregious examples. No biopic is an historical document, no matter the accuracy of the content. Some may include more facts than others, but the sheer need to streamline and entertain are compromising factors.
Didn’t Pitt’s production company make “12 Years”?Just sayin’.
Or even better, Kevin Costner in Hidden Figures.
Pitt would have worked better in 12 Years a Slave if he switched places with Garrett Dillahunt. Having Pitt be the potential savior who betrays the protagonist would have been a bigger punch to the gut and would have deflected the accusations that Pitt cast himself as a white savior in a film he produced. Plus his accent sucked.
Saw it awhile back, performances are good. Dialogue is kinda play-like in places. Pacing is slow in spots and the film could have done better establishing time and distance.
The photos in the credits were kinda cool.
This seems like the sort of movie that’s gonna get played in high school history classes the week before spring break when the teacher doesn’t really want to do anything else. But, like, in a good way.
Actually I had a history teacher that showed nothing but movies about racism for a whole semester. He would’ve ate this up.
I had a teacher that showed us ROMPER STOMPER in 10th grade summer school.
For some reason he was no longer our teacher the following year, though I’m not entirely sure of the given explanation.
He’s now Russell Crowe’s agent.
I just want to know who on Earth chose the shot of Ervino hiding behind a tree like a cartoon character as the only promotional still for the movie. From the reviews it seems like it dramatically undersells the movie and just looks dumb in general.
The definitive biopic of Harriet Tubman has already kinda been done
“The film begins in Maryland in 1849, when twentysomething Tubman, then still a slave and going by her birth name, Minty Ross, is experiencing one of her “spells”—a sort of trance during which she sees memories of the past and glimpses of the future.”Which is in fact historically accurate. As I’ve mentioned in a previous article she was a teenager she suffered a blow to the head from an overseer which was never properly treated. She would spend the rest of her life suffering from seizures and would sometimes fall unconscious.
I haven’t rewatched Eve’s Bayou in too long. That is a great movie. Holding out hopes for this one.
Eve’s Bayou was the shit!
I want to like these biopics more, but their makers never seem to have seen Walk Hard, and keep falling into the same story traps and cliches, chief among them the trope of the person who tells the Hero they can’t be a hero, and should just give up!
Admittedly, being a hero is usually a crazy thing. Telling wannabe heroes that they should give up is also called being a good friend. The vast majority of the time, they’re right, and the wannabe just dies/fails horribly. It comes off as shallow and cliche in the way that most legit life advice does, but that’s because we see movies about heroes who succeed, and not so often wannabes that fail.
There are a lot of Save The Cat adherents, yes.
Erivo HAS INSULTED African Americans more than once and has never apologized for the ignorant intemperate comments that she has made. We need to reject her and this inferior film. Go to the library or online and get books about the life and work of Harriet Tubman and many others who worked in the Underground Railroad network. Erivo is a delusional self-hating clown with green hair and outlandish clothes. We dont need HER.
The “recommended stories” links show that Danette wrote about it earlier today, but I’m going to second her recommendation of the Harriet Tubman monologue episode of Underground. Aisha Hinds is mesmerizing and her performance works as a standalone episode. I know because I’ve streamed it a few times for people who had not seen or were familiar with the show.As for Harriet, I’ll definitely see it via a streaming service or the Redbox. There’s probably a better way to phrase it, but I’ve been a big fan of Harriet Tubman since I wrote a paper about her in the eighth grade. This includes a couple of stops at her homeplace in New York, plus a day of self-guided exploration in the area around where Maryland have since established her state park.If I were younger and had more time, I’d probably see this in a theater, but this film looks well-suited for viewing in my home.
Guest starring Dustin Hoffman as maybe God, maybe her conscience, maybe her brain damage?
Ah yes, the utterly fascinating person who should be the 20 dollar bill. I’m shocked this is the first major film about her. Well good or not, better late then never.
Will probably go see this. My mother in law really wants to, but to be honest, the Harriet Tubman movie I really want to see involves the raid on Combahee Ferry. Look it up, or listen to the episode of the podcast Uncivil on it. That would be an AWESOME movie.