Whereas Quentin Tarantino set out to explore the evils of the American slave trade with all the gusto and cinematic cool of a spaghetti western, director Steve McQueen opted for a less stylised approach with the recent 12 Years A Slave, which was based on the true memoirs of Soloman Northup, a free man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. Given the subject matter (treated with the utmost seriousness here), the movie was bound to be a difficult watch: and it is. What's remarkable, however, is the level-headedness that McQueen keeps up throughout. That's to say, despite the story and the horrific traits inherent to some of its characters, the movie refuses to pigeon hole anybody into a group: there's no "good" or "evil" - just circumstance, which allows 12 Years A Slave to transcend its origins as "a slave movie" to become an incredibly dramatic and utterly engrossing document on human nature in all its capacities. Performances from Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano, Benedict Cumberbatch and Paul Giamatti are excellent, but it's lead actor Chitwetel Ejiofor who demands your attention. Did somebody say Oscar?
