318: Antebellum

[00:00:00] Daily28, Random Film.

[00:00:03] Let's get to Antebellum from 2020.

[00:00:08] This one is directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Rinz, also written by both of them.

[00:00:15] It stars Janelle Monet, Eric Lang, Jenna Malone, Jack Houston.

[00:00:21] Not a lot of other big names. And the synopsis is successful author Veronica Henley finds herself

[00:00:28] trapped in a horrifying reality and must uncover the mind-bending mystery before it's too late.

[00:00:35] So this one I just saw for the first time a couple days ago and had been meaning to watch it for a

[00:00:43] while, the premise kind of intrigued me where it was not to spoil anything too much.

[00:00:48] I mean, it's a couple of years old, but I liked how it was bouncing back between the pre-Civil War slave era to modern day.

[00:00:58] And I didn't really know how that exactly fit together going in.

[00:01:02] So I was curious and I knew there was going to be some twists and turns and all that.

[00:01:06] And overall, I was a little disappointed, if not pretty disappointed.

[00:01:12] The overall premise is interesting and I appreciate the ambition.

[00:01:17] Like that's something that intrigued me from right off the bat is this kind of movie doesn't really get made all that often.

[00:01:23] And so that drew me in.

[00:01:25] However, for most of the runtime, it felt kind of like a bad black mirror episode and a little too heavy reliance on filmmakers like Jordan Peele and like Shyamalan.

[00:01:39] Like it felt very much in that vein and not really original, not really creative.

[00:01:44] And the worst part about it,

[00:01:46] really, is that it was pretty dull, like for a lot of it. And I loved not that it's a big

[00:01:52] compliment, but or saving grace, but I loved the opening tracking shot the long take through the

[00:01:58] plantation. And then I loved the ending shot where it's following her through the battlefield on the horse.

[00:02:05] That was awesome.

[00:02:06] But nevertheless, that was two or three minutes in the movie.

[00:02:12] And for the rest of it, I was a little checked out.

[00:02:14] There was very little emotional resonance I found.

[00:02:17] It was kind of shallow, surprisingly.

[00:02:20] And the high concept idea, not a whole lot done with it, it didn't really have the finesse

[00:02:27] of filmmakers like M. Night Shyamalan or Jordan Peele, and it also didn't have that creativity

[00:02:34] and confidence with a show like Black Mirror does.

[00:02:39] So unfortunately, I'm definitely with the majority here.

[00:02:41] I thought it was quite a let down. But before I trash

[00:02:46] it too much, first of all, Janelle Monet, amazing, love her and really everything. I

[00:02:52] thought she was fantastic and I really like Jack Houston a lot. He's one of my favorite

[00:02:58] parts of the Boardwalk Empire series. I think he's a very interesting character actor. So

[00:03:03] it has good performances. It looks good. I thought the location was good. And I thought the final twist, which

[00:03:09] you get hints of once it gets about halfway through the movie two thirds of the way through

[00:03:14] the movie, I understood what was going on in your mint too, I think. But the real resolution

[00:03:21] of that and culmination of that twist was a little too little too late.

[00:03:26] And so that was more frustrating than anything. And really, I feel like it could have been enough

[00:03:33] just taking place in the antebellum period where it was these slaves trying to escape

[00:03:40] from a plantation. Like, I think that was interesting in its own right. And then when it would bounce back to the modern day and Janelle Monet being this acclaimed writer and public speaker, it sort

[00:03:52] of lost me in those connections and ties did not really come together too well. But other things

[00:04:00] I liked, it looked good. It was well shot, the lighting, the natural lighting,

[00:04:05] the score was excellent, especially the opening piece

[00:04:10] was very, very strong.

[00:04:11] So there are good elements.

[00:04:12] And I feel like the entire time I was like,

[00:04:14] this could be so much better.

[00:04:16] And I see the pieces, I see the ideas,

[00:04:19] I see what it wants to be, but it's just not there.

[00:04:24] And I hate that about it.

[00:04:25] Because I went in wanting to love it.

[00:04:27] I went in wanting to defend it

[00:04:28] because I heard a lot of people crapping on it.

[00:04:30] So I was very in the mood to be forgiving.

[00:04:36] But I feel like by the first five or 10 minutes

[00:04:38] I was already a little detached from it

[00:04:41] and kind of frustrated.

[00:04:42] So give it a shot if you're curious. You know,

[00:04:45] it is unconventional in a lot of ways. So I will always appreciate that about the movie. But

[00:04:53] also on top of that, the filmmakers, I think this is their first feature film, both writing

[00:05:01] and directing. And maybe they should have waited a little bit to make

[00:05:05] a film like this in terms of the high concept, because you need the right elements to make

[00:05:10] this good and to make it work.

[00:05:13] And I don't think they really had it in them in the first go around.

[00:05:18] So that one is a two out of five.

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