Harriet, the film— A Review
by Wanda Sabir
A woman of controversy even now, Harriet Tubman-Davis, freedom fighter and liberator as portrayed in this current iteration is stirring things up again. If a viewer is looking to see a story where white people are not cast as saviors and Africans as beasts, then this is not the film for you. Clearly, there have to be bad white characters—it is after all the Antebellum South and Africans did not enslave themselves. However, this story tempers white folks with sentimental embellishment. If one can bracket the “Hollywood-ness” of this perpetuation of whiteness, then “Harriet” (2019) is the compelling story of a determined woman who is divinely guided.
The term liberation theology is seldom applied to African people who epitomize within their persons this kind of thinking. Liberation theology is philosophically centered aboard those slave ships with the Yoruba, Fanti, Akan, Christians and Muslims. What other people sustained such a vision cross time and landscape for 400 years? It was a strategy that worked. Harriet a descendent of that traditional.
The film, Harriet, directed by Kasi Lemmons, who wrote the screenplay with Gregory Allen Howard (from Vallejo), stars Nigerian British actor Cynthia Erivo as Araminta “Minty” Ross / Harriet Tubman, with Leslie Odom Jr. as William Still, abolitionist, and Janelle Monáe as entrepreneur and free woman, Marie Buchanon.
Marie and Harriet have many lovely scenes as the freeborn business woman who has no personal knowledge of slavery comes to both respect, admire and love Harriet as the two become confidants. Clarke Peters gives a wise and compassionate portrayal of Ben Ross, Harriet’s father and Rit’s husband, as does Vondie Curtis-Hall as Reverend Samuel Green, a secretly-abolitionist freedman, who gives Harriet important advice—
All of this drama is set against a backdrop of Terence Blanchard’s score and John Toll’s lovely cinematography.
Harriet is a story of faith and it is also the story of a young African woman who is determined to free as many of her people as humanly possible. Early on, she learns that fear is her only enemy and when she learns this, she has no other problems — not her fainting spells from a head injury or the occasional setbacks incurred when she is moving through enemy territory with other Africans who initially challenge her leadership or want to turn back. In Erivo’s very capable hands Harriet is not just actualized, but embodied.
Harriet, though filmed in Virginia, is a mixed bag made in the studio. There is a lot of tension, surprise, pursuit and close calls which Erivo’s Harriet handles with dignity and fortitude. The film is not hard to sit through despite these tense moments which could have been a lot worse. The violence toward Harriet is shown in a flashback and other brutality is minimized except one brutal scene where an African kills another African. There is even a suggested love story between Harriet and her master’s son Gideon Brodess (Joe Alwyn). It’s all in his mind. Harriet doesn’t even entertain these ideas, but the setup is there.
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Moses, as she is known, is too busy rescuing her people, fighting a war yet more importantly never forgetting where she has been and what she left behind. She tells those assembled in the North at a meeting where Frederick Douglas and others well known abolitionists have gathered, that the Africans who were born free do not know what it is like to be enslaved and if they did, they would understand the urgency with which she operates.
What I like about this film is the compassion Harriet has for her sister, Rachel Ross, portrayed by Deborah Ayorinde, who was born in London, grew up in San Jose, and the love the abolitionist has for her mother and father and the care with which she gives them. She is flexible and able to think on her feet. In one scene while she is unconscious, someone moves to touch her and another African stops the person and says she is talking to God.
Cynthia Erivo is no stranger to the American stage or theatre. She has portrayed Celie in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and was one of nine recipients of the 2017 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Erivo’s film roles include the 2018 heist film Widows, the 2018 thriller Bad Times at the El Royale. Look for her as Aretha Franklin in the upcoming National Geographic “Genius” series.
Harriet is in theatres now. Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqoEs4cG6Uw
Readers might have heard about the lawsuit filed by Byron Allen, owner, Entertainment Studios Networks, against Comcast which owns Focus Features, the studio that produced, Harriet. The Inquirer states: “The Hollywood entertainment executive filed a $20 billion civil rights lawsuit. His claim is the cable giant discriminated against him by refusing to carry his channels. Allen’s lawsuit cites the 1866 act — the first civil rights legislation passed to protect the rights of emancipated blacks after the Civil War — which says African Americans have the same rights as whites in business contracts. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Allen could use the law as a basis for his claims. Comcast is petitioning the U. S. Supreme Court to overturn that decision. A hearing is set for Nov. 13.” The Court has until June to make its ruling. The New Jersey NAACP Chapter canceled its Harriet screening in protest and support of the lawsuit.
For background: