Harriet (2019)

Happy Labor Day!     It took me a couple of days to get through this movie.  It's not necessarily a "hard watch" like 12 Years a Slave; it's more that the beginning is a little rough.  

Harriet Tubman (Cynthia Erivo) was born a slave to the Brodess plantation.  Her mother (Vanessa Bell Calloway) was supposed to be freed on the death of a previous owner, making Harriet and all other issue free as well, but the current owner, Eliza Brodess (Jennifer Nettles), is sinking into poverty and refuses to honor the law.  With no other recourse and facing a sale to another owner further south, Harriet escapes and makes her way alone to the free city of Philadelphia and Mr. William Still (Leslie Odom, Jr.), an abolitionist and conductor of the Underground Railroad.  Still gets Harriet a paying job and place to stay but she cannot enjoy freedom while her family is still enslaved and suffering.  She risks everything to make the journey once again to free those she loves.

The movie covers the basic facts that I remember from high school but verges almost into hagiographic territory in telling them.  Tubman did suffer from fainting spells caused by a head injury inflicted by an overseer but I do not remember hearing that she ascribed them to the voice of God.  The film basically makes her clairvoyant, which --and I realize that as a white person, this opinion is less than worthless-- is a little insulting.  Like, it takes away from Harriet Tubman, strategist and navigator, and gives all her ability to an outside force.  Honestly, though, it shouldn't have taken this long to get a fucking biopic of Harriet Tubman, no matter if they made her a prophet or one of the freakin' X-Men.  There should have been at least one of these a year for the last 25 years.  Then we could debate different approaches, different portrayals.  So I can't really knock this.  I will say that Joe Alwyn got way too much fucking screen time, though.

Harriet is currently streaming on HBO Max or with the HBO add-on on Amazon.