Directed by: Gerard Bush, Christopher Renz
Starring: Janelle Monáe, Eric Lange, Jena Malone, Gabourey Sidibe
Rated R, 105 minutes
Last week, President Donald Trump announced an initiative to teach “the miracle of American history” in public schools. To establish guidelines for this change, he proposed a “1776 Commission,” the name (and its purpose) standing in pointed contrast with the 1619 Project, the multimedia project published by the New York Times that reframes American history around slavery and its lingering consequences. As if on cue, “Antebellum” has now been released, lobbing its satirical horror into the debate like a grenade.
The movie opens with a lengthy depiction of the lives of slaves on a cotton plantation, enduring violent punishments and grueling labor and dehumanizing mockery at the hands of the owners. We follow a slave named Eden (Janelle Monáe, “Hidden Figures”), through whose eyes we slowly come to understand certain peculiarities about this plantation—the strict rules regarding when the slaves can speak, the anachronistic speech patterns some people use, the sounds of Civil War battles constantly thundering in the background. This is not, we realize, a typical plantation.
Before we find out its big secret, the movie pulls a U-turn into the present day. The woman we’ve come to know as Eden is now Dr. Veronica Henley, a well-respected author and scholar of American history. She lives in a beautiful house with her husband and daughter and travels the country giving talks about race to convention crowds. It is while she’s on one such trip, during which she finds herself in some unsettling encounters with white strangers (whose faces we recognize from the plantation), that we start to piece together the story.
The connection between these two disparate timelines is eventually revealed in a plot twist à la M. Night Shyamalan, but by the time the reveal comes around, it’s little surprise to us. To the movie’s credit, it doesn’t rely solely on the twist for impact, but rather allows it to inform what we’ve already seen and give credence to what follows. Writer-director duo Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, making their first feature film, have delivered an unconventional story with an unconventional structure, but without ever losing momentum or getting lost in the conceit. It’s an experiment that works.
That’s not to say all the writing is convincing. Veronica, supposedly a leading scholar of Black history in America, who appears on television to discuss race and politics and inequity, notices nothing amiss when strangers send her an ominous bouquet of cotton; she mistakes the cotton for an exotic flower. And when the shocking truth about the plantation becomes clear, Bush and Renz want us to accept the shock at face value, ignoring the many questions it raises, not only about the characters but also about logistics. The plotting may be clever and the timing apt, but “Antebellum” asks its audience to suspend disbelief to such an extent that it dilutes the impact of its alternative-history premise.
Even disregarding the sloppy mechanics, one walks away from “Antebellum” wondering with what intention it was made. Rather than draw the link between antebellum slavery and modern racism and explore the implications thereof, Bush and Renz present the parallel between the past and present as a given. And in the context of the straightforward revenge plot, this parallel, like the movie’s dramatization of the harrowing ordeals of Black slaves, becomes little more than set dressing. On the one hand, the movie’s unwillingness to grapple with its own premise mirrors the unwillingness of Americans—both past and present—to interrogate our principles and prejudices. On the other hand, you could leave “Antebellum” thinking you’ve just watched an advertisement for a race war.
Still, whatever “Antebellum” lacks in clarity and purpose (and, perhaps, good taste), it makes up for with uniquely engrossing storytelling and sure-footed direction from Bush and Renz—not to mention a solid lead performance from Janelle Monáe, evocative visuals, and a score that complements the slow-building tension. Bush and Renz may be overly cocky filmmakers—”Antebellum” begins with an epigraph, which a character later recites, as if we didn’t get the idea the first time—but their debut possesses a vital sense of urgency. If it feels at times that political discourse has ossified in the age of Trump, then “Antebellum” reminds us that nothing is settled, and everything is still at stake.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 9/25/20.