12 Years a Slave - 4 stars

Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a free black man living in pre-civil war New York.  He lives with his wife and 2 children, and works as a professional fiddle player.  One day a couple of men show up and offer him a temporary job playing in Washington, D.C.  He agrees and leaves town with the two men.  After a night of drinking, he wakes up to find himself in a cell, chains around his wrists and ankles.  From there he is transported to Louisiana and sold to a plantation owner.

This is a hard movie to watch, but it's incredibly powerful.  We see the horrors that slaves endured in the south.  We see a woman separated from her kids at a slave market, we see how runaway slaves are punished, we see slaves whipped to within an inch of their lives.  The violence is explicit but not gratuitous. 

The casting is perfect.  Ejiofor has a commanding screen presence and he really made me feel empathy for his character.  He has to handle a range of emotions and experiences, and he does it without overacting.  Paul Giamatti plays the man who runs the slave auction, a businessman who views the slaves the same way a rancher looks at his cattle.  Paul Dano plays creepy like nobody else, and he has a few good scenes as a carpenter who is intimidated by Northup's intelligence, which makes him dangerous. 

Benedict Cumberbatch is Northup's first owner, and he's a kind and fair man (for a slave owner, anyway).  But the real horror begins when he is sold to Edwin Epps (Michael Fasbender), a ruthless plantation owner who measures the cotton picked by his slaves daily, and whips the ones who didn't pick enough.  Epps is married to a woman named Mary (Sarah Paulson) who may be worse than he is.

Even with all these great actors, the standout is newcomer Lupita Nyong'o, who plays Patsey.  Patsey is the hardest worker on the plantation.  She regularly picks twice as much cotton as any of the men.  Unfortunately for her, she is also the favorite of Epps, and he often comes to her in the night.  Mrs. Epps is aware of this, and hates Patsey for it.  The things Patsey has to endure are horrific.

The movie is incredibly vivid.  It doesn't feel as written as other movies, meaning everything that happens feels more organic.  It made me feel like I was there on the plantation, feeling the heat of being out working in the sun all day.  It's incredibly well written and directed, and I think everyone should see this movie.