Review of 12 Years a Slave (2013) by Erastes A — 03 Oct 2014

It's not that I didn't LIKE the film, but overall I was quite disappointed. I suppose I was expecting a sweeping epic along the scale of Gone with the Wind or something, but what I saw was much more of a kitchen sink kind of drama, set in one or two places.

There was no real scale to it, no sense of time passing despite it being over two hours.

The performances were incredible, of course, how could you miss with such great actors involved, but their time on screen seemed to be cut out in lieu of ridiculously long staring scenes from Ejiofor who seemed to have one expression, that of bafflement, no matter what was actually going on. I was least impressed with his performance, and I normally rate him very highly. Cumberbatch Pitt and Fassbender rule the screen, which isn't really how it should be.

So, all in all, watchable but it didn't live up to the hype, despite the performances.