Harriet (2019)
Having studied about the lead up to the Civil War and slavery extensively and having seen my fair share of movies about this time in history, I think I’m bored of films about slavery. I only watched this because Cynthia Erivo got nominated for best actress, (Awkwafina and Florence Pugh should have taken that spot in my opinion), but she did a very good job and was the best part of the film. The character of Harriet was handled well too, a great character to get behind and root for through the entirety of the film. But other than her, there really isn’t anything worth mentioning. It’s not exactly that it was bad, everything was just very mediocre and extremely forgettable. There are some great scenes that show Harriet’s strength, whether it’s when she’s inspiring others to follow her through a river or when there’s a montage of her freeing slaves or when she stands up to her once owner, but that’s all there is to the movie. It’s at times inspiring, but forgettable at all those moments in between. That doesn’t mean its bad, but its not good either, just very average and left me quite bored for most of this movie. And there’s really not much more for me to say about this movie, but to summarize, it does a great job of developing Harriet as a character, which is the most important thing when it comes to a “biopic” like this, everything else is just so average or below average, that this movie ends up being not worth your time. I think it’s safe to say that Cynthia Erivo won’t be taking home the Oscar for best actress in a leading role.
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