Antebellum Movie Review

​Antebellum is premiering on demand; available to rent on all major digital and cable retailers this Friday Sept. 18.

“Antebellum” is not just a style of Southern mansion, it is a movie that sets your calendars back to the era of slavery and the Civil War. Can the past never die? In the minds of some people, there is never a time where the South lost the War and Mr. Lincoln freed the enslaved. The movie imagines a throwback to a brutal and unfair system — because some folks like to reenact the wrong side of history.

Veronica Henley (played by Janelle Monáe) lives the good life with all the benefits. She is a well-educated author and speaker, and she has a loving husband and they have a preciously cute daughter. After a business trip with her close friends Sarah (played by Lily Cowles) and Dawn (played by Gabourey Sidibe), she gets into a ride-share for a quick trip back to the hotel. Veronica has had a busy day, speaking at a conference about minority empowerment and especially Black Women taking back their rights and getting equal treatment. But she never gets back to her hotel to rest up for the fight next day, because…

Actually, this is not the first part of the movie, since it initially sets up an overview of a Southern cotton plantation. It is the time of the Civil War, and the place is run by the Confederates. On this plantation, one of the many slaves is called Eden (also played by Monáe). The people in charge are rough and ruthless. The places is run by Captain Jasper (played by Jack Huston) and his cruel Southern Belle of a wife Elizabeth (played by Jena Malone). They are both mean racist bigots, who create inhuman conditions for the slaves that they control. The day in and day out of the cotton fields are shown in the all the despicable horror that it is. Any slave who talks back is beaten, and if there is an escape attempt – there is a death sentence waiting.

There is some type of connection between Eden and Veronica. But what can it be? Eventually it is clear that this ‘Antebellum’ paradise is not in the past, it is a current thing. This is some type of weird ‘Confederate Summer Camp’ kind of thing going on. It is a place where White segregationists and crazy racists can live out the life of their dreams. But what about people such as Eden, or any of the other ‘slaves’ in this hellhole? They are not here willingly and they are robbed of all freedoms and dignity. The look and feel of the place is the Civil War era in the South. However the chains and bullets are not play-acting. These are real…

Can there be some link between the successful and head-strong Veronica and the meek and powerless Eden? Is there an explanation that ties them together? Is there is a way for Eden to escape? Will she be able to overcome her captors, and bring justice and vengeance down on their hate-filled heads?

“Antebellum” tries, and it tries really hard, to reach the social introspection of “Get Out” and have the same effect on the audience. Some elements are there: Black people being kidnapped, White people who come on a little too friendly and some horrible situation that the main characters themselves in. The movie even borrows some ideas from “Django Unchained, with a terrible plantation owner and all his evil minions being slaughtered in the end.

But to the downfall of the movie, it mostly borrows from a weak concept from a movie by M. Night Shymalan. In this movie, there was a culture – a society cut off from the modern world, but still existing in our modern world. “Antebellum” wants to be an Important Statement about Race Relations. But the movie winds up being more like a social justice version of “The Village”…

Janelle Monáe puts in a very good performance. But the writing and style of this movie work against her at every (twist and) turn. The production values are quite showy, seeing how the Southern beauty of the mansions and the lands are on display. But there are those pesky ‘slave’ quarters that always bring down the property values. All the White characters are either deep-down evil inbreeds, or they are well-meaning idiots.  There is nothing in between.

Antebellum is premiering on demand; available to rent on all major digital and cable retailers this Friday Sept. 18.