Antebellum (2020)

 Score: 4 / 5

It begins with a daring long take as we weave through the field surrounding a Louisiana slave plantation. The costumes and rustic set design appear to be from the mid-nineteenth century, in the titular American antebellum period. In fact, the gorgeous natural lighting, the swaying Spanish moss, and the brutal conditions of the plantation reminded me almost immediately of Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave. Then, in slow motion, a woman flees through the tall grass, chased by slavers on horseback; a closeup of her face as a lasso loops around her neck and she is pulled back, dragged along the ground. It's the sort of unbearably violent thing that will get people riled up, filmed in that beautiful-and-disturbing way that could be exploitative. I wondered what movie I was getting into, and this is just the opening sequence.

Antebellum is a rarity. I went in knowing almost nothing about it, and I think that served me well. Because it's ultimately doing a whole lot in terms of plot and theme, and very little of it is clearly defined. At the end of Act 1, which I'll guess is loosely the first forty minutes or so, the entire movie suddenly changes as the rug is pulled from beneath us. It takes some getting used to, but it's the kind of twist that made M. Night Shyamalan famous, and frankly the twist strongly reminds me of one of his movies in particular (can't say which, or I'll spoil it for you!). Some will see it as gimmicky, but by the end I was struck by just how horrifyingly plausible the entire premise is in our country today.

But I don't want to go down that rabbit hole, because it's too difficult to talk about this movie without starting to give away its secrets. Perhaps it would be better to praise Janelle Monae at this point, because she is magnificent as always. Here she plays Eden, a slave planning to escape, and a dual role as Veronica, a renowned sociologist in the present day. Both are strong women working to assert themselves, but their enemies are closing in. The two characters exist quite separately, and we aren't sure of their connection, if there is any. It's a gamble on the filmmakers' part, and one that will leave some people scratching their heads for a while. Thankfully, cinematographer Pedro Luque works hard to capture lots of detail in his gorgeously framed shots; the gritty, tactile warmth of the plantation and the sleek, modern coolness of a bourgeois home clearly belong in the same movie.

Without giving anything else away, I want to end by saying that the movie juggles a lot. I'm not sure it handles its weighty ideas with any real ideological intention or even much conviction. There are themes, but few morals. Despite its contrived plot and major reveals in the latter half, it hardly manages to feel urgent, much less important. Mostly the movie feels angry. Righteous anger from the last four years (and of course, the last several hundred) is past due, and if more movies were made out of raw passion like this I'd be much more critical. The pain and anger fueling this movie could have serviced any number of concise, coherent meanings, but Antebellum as it is seems content to just express itself. With its brilliant, troubling premise, I am surprised it didn't delve deeper to become something profound.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

Score: 3.5 / 5

I'll say a few things right off the bat. I loved this movie. I loved Seth Grahame-Smith's book. I love mashing genres together. I love the cheeky, naughty, silly awesomeness of this kind of artwork. I'm not a fan of much comedy in general, but this is exactly the sort of sassy, irreverent humor I crave. It's why I play few video games other than the Lego actions games of popular franchises. It's why I loved Cowboys and Aliens. It's why I'm crazy about Grahame-Smith's other books.

For those of you who may not know, or are too lazy to guess, the film is essentially (very essentially) the plot of Jane Austen's classic romance with the added element of brain-eating zombies taking over 19th-century England. That's it. Very simple. From what I've read and heard, a lot of viewers felt let down by the movie because it's not as high-brow as they were expecting. To be fair, the book is a conceptual coup, with Grahame-Smith pirating large sections of Austen's work (never fear, she is credited with co-authorship), mimicking her style in others, and wholly inventing new horror in still more. The film, by nature as a film, can't do the same; what it does do is take the concept and adapt it to a more or less straightforward action/horror film while retaining the romance, drama, and vicious wordplay of Austen's classic.

Much like the recent adaptation of another Grahame-Smith book -- Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter -- this film takes great liberties with the source material. Though this one is directed by Burr Steers (17 Again, Igby Goes Down) and not Tim Burton, it's still a notably more Gothic vision than I expected, littered with bodies and smeared in gore. A leather-clad and moody Darcy, played by Sam Riley pretending to be Hugh Jackman a la Van Helsing (2004), leads the battle against the undead, while the silly, corseted Bennet sisters avoid their mother's schemes to marry them off. When newcomer Mr. Bingley (the handsome Douglas Booth) throws a ball and zombies invade the kitchens, the sisters seize the moment to show the villagers their fearsome prowess as masters of the sword.

Not long after, we begin to see that the sisters -- actually, pretty much just Elizabeth -- is no less a master of propriety and conversation than with a blade. In perhaps the most effective scenes of the film, the direct confrontations between Darcy and Liz and later Lady Catherine and Liz, our young hero thrusts and parries both her body and her words in fearsome combat that is at once outrageously funny and terrifyingly violent. Bravo to Lily James (Downton Abbey, Cinderella) for mastering the material. The other two perfectly cast actors, to my mind, would be Charles Dance as the Gothic version of Mr. Bennet, and Matt Smith, as the silly and stupid Mr. Collins (though, regrettably, his end in the film is nothing like in the novel, a scene I was particularly anticipating).

The film begins to falter, however, when it tries to make larger departures from the source material and, in doing, takes itself far too seriously. The siege of London, the escape over the bridge, the fairytale ending, and the weird mid-credits wannabe cliffhanger all point to a design that seeks to fashion a blockbuster franchise. The filmmakers should have left well enough alone and made the film the material deserves. For the most part they did, but it's in those final scenes that they were obviously trying too hard and grasping for handholds beyond their reach.

But, then, the film itself says, "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

IMDb: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies