By Aramide Tinubu ·Updated January 29, 2022
Alice begins with a blood-curdling scream. As the film comes into focus, the audience meets Alice (Keke Palmer), an enslaved woman on the run. Before her destination is revealed, the film pulls us back in time to a plantation in rural Georgia. Surrounded by her loved ones, Alice secretly weds a man named Joseph (Gaius Charles) in a darkened cabin. However, no sooner have the newlywed couple said their vows are they beckoned outside by the plantation owner, Paul (Jonny Lee Miller). The audience learns quickly that Paul luxuriates in endless acts of cruelty include sexual and physical violence.
Alice’s world has been depicted in countless films, including Harriet, 12 Years A Slave and, the oddly similar Antebellum. In Alice, first-time filmmaker Krystin Ver Linden painstakingly takes the time to sit in this setting of horrors, depicting everything from iron muzzles to beatings and alarming talks of human breeding. Unfortunately, this adds nothing new to the narratives of this time period.
Languishing on the plantation for more than 40 minutes, the audience learns more about Alice. Willful and determined, she is no wallflower. Alice can read, a skill taught to her by Paul for his personal gain. She is also almost certain something beyond the world she knows exists. After all, Paul’s ailing mother tells Alice stories about being a dancer in Chicago, and strange tools are found buried in the earth around the plantation. Soon enough, Alice discovers much more of the world than she could have dreamed of. Following a violent altercation with Paul, she runs for her life and finds herself stumbling onto a highway in the year 1973.
Having fainted from the clash with Paul and the unrecognizable surroundings, Alice finds in thetarget=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener” aria-label=”Malcolm X (opens in a new tab)”>Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and Diana Ross on TV and in magazines, Alice begins to piece together the lie of her life. Embolden by her new knowledge and spurred into action following a viewing of the
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