Harriet is a 2019 film directed by Kasi Lemmons and starring Cynthia Erivo, an Oscar nominee for this role.
Harriet is a first-person racial drama of a slave who, after escaping, decides to free her compatriots. Created by and for tears, it uses at all times simple and obvious strategies to lead the viewer and manipulate him or her in a way that is as crude as it is apparently effective.
Plot
Harriet Tubman is not doing very well on the plantation. Fed up with the injustice, she decides to escape and travel 100 miles to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After a year of freedom, she returns to the plantation to free her husband, who has married another woman and does not want to run away with her. She then frees her family, but this is only the beginning.
The Movie. Review
Beyond the racial drama, the film is a bit of fiddling and gimmickry, in a narrative riddled with conventions that reminds us of so many lesser works. It limits itself to tell the facts in a more or less tearful way, emphasizing at all times the most melodramatic moments.
A movie made to make you cry, easy and a bit crude that takes advantage of the obvious drama to take the spectator where and when it wants in the simplest way, tricky and without any squeamishness. It doesn’t make excessive use of graphic violence, despite its original poster, and the film becomes a bit The Color Purple, with all the tear-jerking stuff in between.
The main actress, Cynthia Erivo, is very good in her role and the technical aspects are perfectly achieved thanks to an excellent production.
With characters, designed for the occasion, that perform at all times as puppets of an intentional script.
The script fails as well as the obvious intentionality that no one here is trying to hide.
Not even a tiny little bit.
Our Opinion
We are going to give it two and a half stars, because these movies made and designed to make us cry are not our cup of tea except when it comes to real historical movies well set as Friday the 13th, Swamp Thing or most of the aliens-themed.
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