'12 Years': The Best Movie of 2013?

For the second year in a row, one of the year's best films is about slavery. But unlike Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, which was an uplifting tale of the demise of our national shame, or Django Unchained, which was a thrilling, fictional action romp, 12 Years a Slave takes a dark look at American slavery and for a (relative) change of pace tells it from the perspective of the oppressed. It also carries the distinct point of being based on a true story; it's adapted from Solomon Northup's autobiography of the same name, released back in 1853. Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) was a free black man raising a family and making a living as a renowned violinist in New York. But when he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the deep south, he couldn't dare try and convince anybody in authority as to his identity in a place where simply knowing how to read would be a death sentence for a black man. And so for twelve years, Northup (under the given name of Platt) was forced to pick cotton, build guest houses, punish his fellow slaves, and witness or suffer some of the worst atrocities visited upon man in the whole of our nation's history, all before his eventual (and statistically unlikely) escape all those years later.

We're going to have to learn to pronounce his name, now.

Directed by Shame's Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave is arguably the toughest movie to watch in 2013. McQueen does not shy away from difficult topics, and when a whole race of humans were subject to the kinds of dangers that slaves were subject to in the two decades leading up to Lincoln's presidency, there is no shortage of material for the director to mine. Starting with kidnapping and slavery, we see murder, rape, lashings, lynchings, inhuman punishments, families broken up, and people worked to death. That McQueen and his crew can capture the sheer force of that inhumanity and not flinch at the emotional devastation it brings is more than remarkable; when fellow slaves refuse to get involved in an attempt on Northup's life that literally leaves him hanging from a tree for most of a day, you really get a sense of how that depressingly real world worked on a daily basis. Hans Zimmer's score highlights this all nicely, adapting to the events of this dreary world and excelling where it needs to without threatening to overshadow the scene itself.

Wait... is that Garret Dillahunt? I LOVE him!

McQueen also has the help of an all-star cast to supplement his directing talents. Ejiofor has long been recognized as a talented actor, but not necessarily one that has achieved mainstream success. Arguably his biggest role before now came in the British thriller Pretty Little Things, and that was over a decade ago. Here, he makes the argument that we really should have been paying attention to films like Kinky Boots, Serenity, Children of Men and Redbelt in the years before this. When we're tasked with witnessing Northup's trials over his dozen years of enslavement, you need an actor who can carry that load and look impossibly more tired and worn down from one scene to the next. You can't just ROOT for a character like Solomon; his journey demands that he literally be in the gracious thoughts of the audience, to be PRAYED for, even by nonbelievers. As an actor, Ejiofor manages to elicit that quantity of sympathy with his performance, putting forth a masterful showing that so far outpaces anything else seen this year.

Solomon dearly wishes he knew how to quit him.

And Ejiofor isn't alone, though the extensive cast has a "mixed bag" status. There are some truly epic, award-worthy performances here, especially from the likes of Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano and Sarah Paulson. While each of their characters have similar character traits (evil, quick to anger, sadistic folk), their skills prevent them from becoming overly repetitive, also thanks to the fact that they have their own unique motivations and desires. Other actors would be lucky to have such depth to work with; both Benedict Cumberbatch and Brad Pitt put in excellent efforts, but neither is given incredibly much to do, with Pitt narrowly winning out in sheer importance to the story. It never hurts to have such exemplary talents in your cast; sometimes you just wish more had been done with them. That is especially true when noteworthy actors (like The Wire's Michael K. Williams and Academy Award nominee Quvenzhane Wallis) are loaded into "blink-and-you'll-miss-them cameos.

Somehow I don't think he's in the mood for "pat-a-cake"

But even the best films possess a few flaws, and 12 Years a Slave is no exception. McQueen and cinematographer Sean Bobbitt put together some gorgeous shots (Bobbitt's work also excels in The Place Beyond the Pines), but occasionally become lost in them, focusing a bit too long on the beauty of the shot, slightly undermining the nature of the setting. Another quibble (because these are indeed quibbles) is one that other reviewers seem to love, the performance of Kenyan newcomer Lupita Nyong'o. Don't get me wrong, I DID like Nyong'o's performance (even if it's not as groundbreaking as people are saying); it's just that the character itself seems to be a fictional catch-all for black women slaves, a design created explicitly to suffer the tragedies of the era that Solomon Northup was not necessarily in danger of suffering. Again, Nyong'o is fine, but her character seems fabricated merely as a side note to deflect attention briefly away from Northup's story. Personally, I preferred Pariah's Adepero Oduye as a mother separated from her children a more compelling overall character, despite substantially less screentime.

Um, is that Beasts of the Southern Wild's Dwight Henry?

As the closing credits roll, you'll probably never want to see 12 Years a Slave ever again. It's has all the makings of a modern classic, but its subject matter ensures that - while arguably one of the year's best - you're not going to walk away feeling all happy and gleeful and wanting to take your friend to see it as well. It even caps the whole thing off by reminding you that Northup's experience was a unique one; of thousands of free blacks kidnapped and sold into slavery, few were ever heard from again, let alone rescued. 12 Years is a story that took far too long to make its way to the big screen, and the result under the direction of McQueen is quite easily among the year's best. So do yourself a favor and see it once. Even if you never want to see another movie anytime soon, I think you'll agree the risk is worth the reward.

Shames Me Not

Quick, what NC-17-rated film has had the highest financial gross since the creation of the rating in 1990? If you guessed the 1995 Paul Verhoeven title Showgirls, give yourself a pat on the back. It doesn't hurt that this particular title was been the only one with that NC-17 rating to get itself a wide release, as often filmmakers whose work get that rating will edit and change their films to try and appeal for a reduction to an R rating instead. R-rated films get to see wide release, more and better advertising and by those means a much larger potential audience, whereas one hampered by an NC-17 rating are often depicted as "niche" titles and play in New York and Los Angeles almost exclusively, with a little indie theatrical action around the country as it prepares for the upcoming awards shows. We're a long way away from 1969, when Midnight Cowboy became the only X-rated (before the porn industry stole that term) film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. These days, anything rated higher than R is considered too big a deal, and many millions of dollars end up being spent in the mad dash to appeal for that relatively more acceptable ceiling. This is why it's so refreshing to see that Shame did not undergo this same process, proudly (and perhaps a little foolhardily) wearing the adult-only patch as what director Steve McQueen called "a badge of honor, not a scarlet letter." Instead of going for leniency from a sometimes shockingly prudish ratings board in an attempt to make a film focused on sex addiction more marketable, McQueen and his crew stood by the content they had produced, confident that their storytelling methods were the only way to properly depict the issues within.

Are scarves for real? Are they a "thing" now?

Shame follows New York businessman Brandon (Michael Fassbender) as he goes through his everyday motions in New York City. From the very beginning we see that Brandon lives his life a little differently than most: between sex with random women, furious masturbation, a truly epic porn collection and even the hiring of prostitutes, Brandon seems to fill every open moment in his life with sexual fervor, and not entirely of his own volition. Obviously not comfortable with his situation, he generally avoids personal contact with others, with only married wannabe-womanizing boss David (James Badge Dale) the closest thing he has to a friend. He also ignores repeated attempts by his sister (Carey Mulligan) to make contact, not wanting to allow family back into his life. When she instead appears on his doorstep and having nowhere else to go, Brandon feels his already fragile life slipping past, and the dirty little secrets he's tried to keep hidden begin to make themselves more present and uncomfortable than they've ever been before.

One of many uncomfortable scenes in this film

Now, admit it: when you read the words "sex addiction" earlier, you chuckled a little bit, even if just on the inside. Today it seems like the word "addiction" is tossed around on a whim, but the truth is that as we learn more and more about how the human brain is wired, sex addiction is just another form of mental instability no different than alcoholism, compulsive overeating or drug addiction. When someone becomes addicted to alcohol, drugs or food (or anything, for that matter), the overriding drive behind them is the search for pleasure. Indulging in these habits causes the brain to feel so good that when those things are NOT in the system, it can cause depression and sadness, causing the afflicted to search out that great feeling once more. However, while people seem more understanding when it comes to alcohol or drug abuse (they probably know someone who suffers from those issues), sex addiction doesn't get the same respect in most circles as an actual illness. It's really no different however, as the human orgasm is among the most pleasurable feelings a person can obtain. It's no less reasonable to be infatuated with that as your emotional high as with other means, but the truth is that the idea just hasn't been around as long as other concepts. For that reason it may still be some time before sex addicts are treated on the same level as other sufferers.

"Cream in your coffee" of course takes on a whole new meaning

My whole reason behind that unexpected sociological ramble was that I was impressed how seriously Shame takes its subject matter. While the film is at times difficult to watch, it's obvious that McQueen and crew took their time making sure every detail was exactly what they wanted to portray, and accurate at that. Sex addiction is no joke, and there is very little to suggest that the cast and crew wished to do anything besides treat this problem as a real and valid issue that people face today. While there are some moments that feel a little forced (Brandon having sex with a woman in an alley underneath where someone has scrawled "fuck" on the wall, for instance), McQueen doesn't do anything without a reason. This has both positives and negatives, especially when he has Mulligan sing a painfully slow rendition of "New York, New York" that successfully transmits to the audience its intention but suffers from forcing the fake audience for whom she's performing to act like it was the greatest thing they had ever seen. There are moments throughout in which the story is a little TOO on point with its message, but thankfully these moments are few and are even balanced by truly great sequences, for instance a single-shot of Brandon running through the streets of New York just to blow off some steam.

This film likely won't get a Best Costume nomination...

If there's one more thing Shame does well, it's cementing Fassbender as one of the industry's rising stars. Fassbender has been around for a while, making his television debut in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, and running through innocuous smaller roles in 300, Inglourious Basterds and Jonah Hex before truly breaking out this year. Teaming up with McQueen for the first time since his acclaimed performance in 2008's Hunger, Fassbender forces himself into discussions as an obvious front runner for the Best Actor award in any award show going forward. Brandon walks that line between normal life and crippling addiction so finely, and I can't imagine any actor besides Fassbender being able to pull off the level of required subtlety to make that believable, let alone the arguably best performance by a male actor this year. Mulligan is perhaps not as inspired, but I believe that is because there wasn't enough of her. Some of the best scenes in the film feature interaction between Mulligan and Fassbender's siblings, but there could have been a few more scenes of that like to flesh out their past relationship. Her character, Cissy, is an emotionally juvenile free-spirit who is going through some issues of her own, not the least of which is an obvious codependency on others. Mulligan carries this nicely, and as I've never seen An Education this is the first instance in which I get why people appreciate her as an actress. While I do think there could have been more connecting these two interesting characters, that they have an obvious history which is not necessarily being shared is acceptable at least.

Proof that frowns are not a pretty thing

There are a few scenes in the film's late stages in which you might wonder as to how far Brandon's descent will take him, and there's one explicit and extensive sex scene which doesn't FEEL like it's faked. What results is more of the discomfort that you've felt for much of the film's run time, and it's unlikely that the great performances will ever tempt you to revisit this title anytime in the future. Still, Shame keeps hold on its credibility thanks mostly to the level of acting brought to the table by the film's exceptionally talented leads. Perhaps not destined to be one of the year's best, Shame still manages to propel itself near the top, debuting as the #9 film of 2011, just ahead of Fassbender's other 2011 titles X-Men: First Class and Jane Eyre. Michael Fassbender deserves to be a star. Thanks to this body of work on his resume, future years might see just that.