Movie Review: Antebellum

It’s similarly based on a big, gimmicky twist, which partially pulls the rug out from under you at the 40-minute mark before yanking the rest through a series of climactic, third-act reveals. “Antebellum” is also trying very hard to be About Something—to say something relevant and resonant about the racial unrest of our current times as an extension of hundreds of years of systematic oppression.

The debut feature from the writing/directing team of Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz is wildly ambitious in both substance and form—you’ve gotta hand it to them, they are indeed going for it here—yet simultaneously half-baked in its blending of past and present, fact and fiction, nightmare and reality. It’s got style for days, from its impressively lengthy, opening tracking shot to its vivid costumes from frequent Coen brothers collaborator Mary Zophres, but the message at its heart is muddled. A title card at the start trots out that familiar William Faulkner quote: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Could that really be all these guys are trying to say?

But while “Antebellum” is dazzling to the eyes, it also leaves an icky taste in your mouth in its leering, exploitative depiction of violent, slavery movie tropes. A woman runs for her life across the fields of a plantation, Confederate soldiers on horseback galloping furiously after her. The shade of her green dress matches the tall blades of grass just so, and the magic-hour sunlight glistens off the tears streaming down her face. The string-heavy score swells insistently as a rope drops around her neck and drags her to the ground. It all takes place in slow motion to allow us to wallow in every lurid detail—and this is just the opening sequence.

Janelle Monáe bears the brunt of the abuse as Eden, a slave who has dared to orchestrate an escape attempt. A Confederate leader known only as “Him” (Eric Lange) beats the crap out of her in her quarters as punishment before branding her and claiming her as his own. Jack Huston adds a not-so-subtle vibe of menace as a sadistic and slightly sloshed officer and Jena Malone drips with honeyed villainy as his wife.

It all takes place long ago—but then we see Civil War troops marching at night, carrying torches and chanting “blood and soil” on their way to a dinner where “Him” addresses them in a rousing speech with some familiar phrasing. “This is the only hope we have of retaining our heritage, our way of life,” he tells them, all refrains we’ve heard recently from white supremacists and the alt-right as they engage in racist demonstrations of hatred and violence.