Harriet

Movie Information

Harriet Tubman's extraordinary deeds are cheapened via Lifetime movie trappings.
Score:

Genre: Biopic/Drama
Director: Kasi Lemmons
Starring: Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Joe Alwyn
Rated: PG-13

The fact that there’s finally a widely available biopic about Harriet Tubman is a major achievement, but the Lifetime movie treatment that the typically reliable Kasi Lemmons (Mudbound; Talk to Me) provides in Harriet is a disservice to the great woman’s legacy.

In her first starring role, Cynthia Erivo (Widows) is lifeless and uncharismatic as our heroine, whose surprisingly dull path to the Underground Railroad is marred by a distracting trope of visions from God steering her decisions and further cheapened by a non-R rating that yields a bizarrely soft look at slavery.

Told via boring, boilerplate visuals and cloying musical cues, Tubman’s daring deeds deserve better than this significant step back for the cast and crew that’s also an insult to slave narratives overall.

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About Edwin Arnaudin
Edwin Arnaudin is a staff writer for Mountain Xpress. He also reviews films for ashevillemovies.com and is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association (SEFCA) and North Carolina Film Critics Association (NCFCA).

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