This is the true story of Solomon Northup, an educated black man living a free life in New York during the years before the Civil War. He lives there with his wife, two children, friends, is well off, and has all a man could ask for. The unthinkable happens when Solomon travels with two men to Washington D.C. under the guise of being hired to play his fiddle; the men drug him & sell him as if he were a common slave. Overnight Solomon's old life has vanished. He is now called Platt, taught to forget his privileged background, and sold into bondage. Over the course of years, Solomon has many masters, meets many slaves, comes to understand the Southern world in which he involuntarily lives, and yet somehow never gives up hope that someday he will be a free man once again. His determination to live and to keep his humanity in tact creates conflict wherever he goes, but he survives with what dignity he can, accepting the goodness from some and the terrible treatment from others, staying alive no matter what the cost.
12 Years a Slave is one of those films that is hard to watch. It's so powerful and so very real that it's sickening in its brutality & truth. It's not unbelievable that man can be so cruel to other men, but it's difficult to see this vile treatment right before our eyes, to feel the torture and experience the pain of loss; loss of life, loss of family, loss of self. It's almost hard to call this film "good" or to claim to like it, as it shows us mankind at its worst and makes no attempt to cover up a terrible story with fake heroics or lessons learned.
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