Successful author Veronica Henley finds herself trapped in a horrifying reality and must uncover the mind-bending mystery before it’s too late.
Chuck says:
Derivative and immature, Antebellum is a lazy piece of work, an exploitation film posing as social commentary that aims to enlist the viewer to its noble cause by fanning the flames of their righteous indignation. However, it takes a surer hand than those belonging to Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, who both claim a writing and directing credit, to accomplish this goal. I suppose that means each only has to take half the blame. Poorly written, this lazy effort isn’t half as clever as the filmmakers think it is what with its one-dimensional characters, lack of narrative depth and a plot twist you can see from a mile away. Operating under the guise of being a crusade for social justice, Antebellum is nothing more than a cheap Twilight Zone rip-off that’s satisfied to linger on the violence it pretends to condemn.
The film gets off to a strong start with an impressive continuous tracking shot in which the camera glides over the grounds of an exceedingly large Southern plantation from the Civil War Era. Confederate soldiers, on foot and horseback, move about with urgency. Slaves are scattered here and there, Eden (Janelle Monae) being one of them, hoping not to draw attention to themselves. Abuse of those in chains is rampant, as one after another is subjected to verbal and physical violence of varying degrees, culminating in the gruesome death of one who has tried to escape.
Then, Eden wakes up in her tony 21st century urban apartment, startled by the disturbing dream she’s just had. She’s no indentured servant but rather an activist and expert in American Constitutional History, who’s made a name for herself as ground-breaking professor and author leading the charge for inclusion of those who have been historically marginalized. Good thing is was all just a dream…or was it?
We’d all be better off if it were just a dream but Bush and Renz set out to show there’s much more (actually, there’s less) to this passing nightmare than meets the eye. Their efforts to connect it with the real-life horrors that befall Edan crumble under any sort of logical scrutiny. The machinations that ensue in order to place our heroine in the setting of her nightmares simply don’t hold water but that’s of little concern where Bush and Renz are concerned. They’re hoping the viewer will overlook these narrative inconsistencies once the bloodletting begins, as captive after captive is subjected to a litany of abuses, all graphic and reprehensible.
While the script is manipulative, Bush and Renz’s greatest sin is populating it with paper thin characters, making it difficult to create any emotional connection with them. You can sum up each person in the film in one sentence (“patronizing professional,” “obnoxious friend,” “moustache-twirling villain”), all of them nothing but placeholders used to pontificate the filmmakers’ perspective in the most obvious manner. You don’t care for any of them – you tolerate them.
Antebellum proves to be the latest in a series of “Emperor-Has-No-Clothes” movies which have the air of importance but are ultimately proven to be empty. Bush and Renz would have you believe the intent of their film is to draw correlations between the treatment of the antebellum slaves and those who remain disenfranchised today, showing that African-Americans of the 21st century are still suffering from the ripple effects of the mistreatment of their ancestors. Yet, that connection is never made. Instead, the movie is satisfied with wallowing in violence, inciting simplistic, reactionary responses and repelling rather than moving us.
