12 Years a Slave

Solomon Northup is a free man in Saratoga until he is drugged and sold under another name. McQueen holds shots past the point where a costume drama would cut away. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon as a man trying to keep his own name in a place that has paperwork against it. Lupita Nyong’o’s Patsey is given the film’s most unbearable attention. The Searchlight trailer is the field and the violin. The memoir is the structure. The film does not soften the twelve years.