The Movie: Strangely covering remarkably similar ground as Django Unchained, only with realism rather than revisionism on the cards, 12 Years A Slave chronicles the plight of Solomon Northup from free man to slave and back again. Side-stepping the melodrama that could easily accompany such a story, 12 Years doesn't rely on tear-inducing piano scores or shouting set pieces of characters bearing all. Instead, Steve McQueen (like Paul Greengrass with United 93, a Brit making a defining film about America) plays fluid with time, forgoing date titles and rushing through some years in the same time he spends on one heartbreaking facial close up. What The Title Gives Away: This years Oscar winner is, like Argo and The Kings Speech before it, based on a true story. But just like audiences werent au fait with the truth behind the Iranian hostage crisis, the journey of Solomon wasnt universally known. Well thanks to all the coverage of the film, everyone, even the two (or probably more) Academy members who voted it for Best Picture without having seen it, know what happens. It highlights how forgiving of spoilers we are when the story, no matter how obscure, is true. Ruin the latest Nolan and youre dead to me. Ruin the latest biopic and I shrug.
