Review of Harriet (2019) by Crimsoncritic — 20 Nov 2019

The problem with Harriet is that by being PG-13, it can’t get across its message against slavery as effectively as it could. Slavery needs no introduction; it’s slavery. So if you’re gonna make a movie about slavery, you need to go balls to the wall and truly capture the horror that slavery was.

But because this movie refuses to do that, when it goes on these monologues of children slaughtered and ruthless treatment of slaves, the audience can’t relate because we didn’t see it. The movie just thinks we can easily visualize the tragedy of slavery in order to be invested in its message; and I mean, yeah, we can.

But the movie should’ve shown us what slavery was instead of just telling us.