Antebellum is a new horror movie about a black author named Veronica Henley who somehow gets mixed up in time and must escape a plantation in the Antebellum South. It was originally supposed to come out back in April of this year, but it was postponed due to the pandemic. It was rescheduled for August, but then it got pushed back a second time, and it finally came out through VOD on September 18.
While I wasn't really sure what to expect going into this one, I was looking forward to it because it seemed to have an interesting premise and it's the first film intended for theatrical release (at least originally) that I've been able to see since theaters across the nation shut down around six months ago. Unfortunately, I was really, really disappointed with it. This movie is just plain bad.
For starters, for most of the film's runtime, I had no idea what it was about. Sure, I knew the basic description I gave in my intro paragraph, but the movie doesn't clue you in to anything more than that until over an hour in. It begins in the past, and for the entire time you're there, nothing that happens moves the plot forward. It's all just a cinematic lecture about how bad slavery was, and it gets old really quickly.
Then, when you finally jump to the present, it gets a bit better, but it's still very light on actual plot. You get to know the character of Veronica a bit, but you're still not sure where the narrative is headed. Only when the two timelines begin to merge do you finally understand what the movie is actually about, but once that happens, the movie somehow gets even worse.
I don't want to spoil it in case you decide to see it, so I'll be vague. Suffice it to say that you learn almost immediately how the two timelines get tangled, and the explanation for it is entirely underwhelming. It fails on both the literal, narrative level and the metaphorical, thematic level. As a narrative twist, it's downright bland. It's way less interesting than the mystery it explains, much like how pulling back the curtain on a magic trick takes away the intrigue that makes you care about it in the first place.
And on the thematic level, it's a metaphor for racism that somehow manages to say both too much and too little at the same time. At its best, it tells us that modern American racism has roots in slavery, but that's not news to anyone. Everyone knows this, so it doesn't add anything to our national conversation about race relations or enrich anybody's understanding of the subject. And at its worst, this narrative choice seems to equate modern racism with slavery, which is going way too far. Yes, racism is definitely still a problem in our country today, but we've made significant progress nonetheless. To imply that we haven't is just factually incorrect.
All of that being said, though, this movie does have a few bright spots. The acting is pretty good (especially lead actress Janelle Monae); the transitions between the two timelines are really cool; and there are even a few times where they make you think you've switched timelines but you really haven't, and those shots are very well-done.
However, those bright spots are few and far between, so on the whole, I have to recommend that you give this movie a pass. It fails to have anything new, interesting, or important to say about racism and race relations in America today, and it conveys its dull message with an equally dull narrative. Simply put, there's just not much about this movie that makes it worth watching.
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