‘Antebellum’ fails to live up to its great premise
“Antebellum” begins with a tracking shot that takes us back to 1863 and to a Southern plantation during the Civil War. We see Confederate soldiers and various people coming and going, and then, as ominous music underscores the scene, the camera settles on the raising of the Confederate flag. That’s the moment we realize that something a bit new is happening here.
This may be the first time in an American movie in which the Confederate flag has been consciously and intentionally presented in a way so as to evoke how the Nazi swastika is seen in movies. You’re meant to see the “Stars and Bars” as an emblem of evil, representing a regime that rose and fell comparatively quickly, but that while it lasted did terrible harm. You’re meant to feel that this is a place where cruelty is in power.
Such a treatment of the Confederacy would have been unthinkable just a quarter century ago, and it shows the completion of a process that began in the past decade. “Antebellum” may be a mediocre movie, at best — at times, it’s just plain amateurish. Yet the very fact that this treatment of the Confederacy has penetrated into art, from the lofty heights of “Django Unchained,” “12 Years a Slave” and “The Free State of Jones,” indicates a pervasive shift in perception.
“Antebellum” has one thing going for it, a great idea: We see Veronica ( Janelle Monae), who is a slave on a pitiless plantation, and then we see her waking up in her bed, some 150 years later, a modern, confident and financially successful writer, believing that she has just had a bad dream. In fact, the masters of the plantation — most vividly Jena Malone, as a gleefully evil Southern belle — have followed Veronica into this new life and are determined to drag her back.
Right away, you can see the metaphorical resonance of this horror-movie concept, and there’s even something interesting here in presenting the same woman, the same core personality, under drastically different circumstances. Point being, the movie is not just saying that this successful woman would have been enslaved in this other world, but the reverse, that the enslaved woman would have been the successful writer. The idea is to remind us that when nations enslave people, the cruelty isn’t contained to the physical but involves the smothering of selfhood, talent and brilliance.
Unfortunately, there’s a gulf between a great idea and compewith
‘Antebellum’ Rated R: for disturbing violent content, language and sexual references
Running time: 105 minutes Where: video-on-demand through Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu and cable and satellite providers
★★ ½ (out of 5)
tent execution, and this first feature, from writer-directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, can’t bridge it. The opening plantation sequence degenerates into orgies of violence, and the modern sequences fall flat entirely. A scene in which Veronica goes out with her girlfriends (Gabourey Sidibe and Lily Cowles) is an endless slog of pointless conversation.
Throughout, Monae doesn’t get to do much besides keep up a bad script. In her slave incarnation, she’s just terrified and victimized, and as the modern woman, she just spouts clichés about how wonderful, powerful and autonomous she is. There’s no person here. Veronica remains an unrealized idea.
You know who could have taken this premise and run halfway around the world with it? Jordan Peele. Or Rod Serling. Or how about this: Serling comes back from the grave, and he and Peele collaborate on an hourlong “Twilight Zone” episode. Those guys would have loved each other, and they would have done something wonderful with this.
Because here’s the thing about “Antebellum.” There’s definitely something here. It’s just that none of it made it onto the screen.