harriet tubman movie review

Harriet Tubman’s incredible life story instantly screams cinematic. Yet somehow, the renowned icon, among the most celebrated freedom fighters of American history, has never been given a major movie to her name before; a fact that is all the more frustrating considering Hollywood’s insatiable appetite for biopics that feature important male figures. Through her assured feature “Harriet,” director Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) thankfully rights this long-standing wrong with passion, putting forth an appealing retelling of Tubman’s rousing tale, while we still wait for the delayed issuing of the new $20 bill slated to honor her legacy. It’s one that involves peerless contributions to abolitionism with hundreds of lives saved, after Tubman, played by a stirring Cynthia Erivo here, escaped from the hands of her slaveholders in the Maryland of 1849 at great risk and steadily became a fearless, storied conductor on the Underground Railroad.

Before she fled her ill fate, Tubman was known as Araminta “Minty” Ross, working at the Brodess plantation alongside her family members that included her husband John ( Zackary Momoh ); a free man on paper but not quite in practice in the racist South. Embellishing it with brief and well-parsed flashbacks, the joint screenplay by Lemmons and Gregory Allen Howard diligently portrays the tail-end of Minty’s days down in the Dorchester County, swiftly introducing us to the plantation’s soon-to-be-departed patriarch, his ruthless son Gideon (a chilling Joe Alwyn ) and the countless horrors of life in bondage.

And Minty manages to escape from it all through a series of acts that often feels like divine mysteries guided by faith and the bright light of North Star. At first, she runs away on a whim after facing permanent separation from her loved ones and being told by the merciless Brodesses that her children, should she have any, can’t be born free regardless of a law (and a letter from a lawyer) that states otherwise. But despite eventually making it to the Pennsylvania border with the prospect of a new life and fresh start, Harriet—her self-chosen free name—can’t rest easy, knowing that her people continue to endure doomed lives as slaves. Ignoring the protests of William Still (Leslie Odom Jr. of “Hamilton”), who leads an organization that helps escaped slaves, and Marie Buchanon (a dazzling Janelle Monáe ), an entrepreneur who owns and runs the Philadelphia boarding house she moves into, Harriet embarks on an endless string of round-trip journeys down to the South, assuming a disguise and the nickname “Moses,” rescuing more and more slaves with each miraculous expedition.

For the most part, Lemmons keeps things straightforward and engaging as Harriet faces the perils of her nighttime, on-foot trips head-on, always under the threat of Gideon and the initially villainous yet later-on protective watchful eye of Walter ( Henry Hunter Hall , memorable and chameleon-esque), a slave hunter taken by Tubman’s determination and unique connection to God. Meanwhile zippy and truly moving montage sequences of various escape scenes mixed with occasional scares when Harriet gets stopped and searched by white officials elevate the pull of a package that is admittedly more standard issue than innovative. But given this is the first major film tackling such a vital figure of American civil rights history, that simplicity is not necessarily a bad thing. Neither is Lemmons’ choice to keep the bloody brutality in check on screen, prioritizing an inspirational and womanly character study. While the heartbreaking truths in “Harriet” feel somewhat glossed over in that sense (especially compared to that of Steve McQueen ’s unforgiving “12 Years A Slave”), the reach of Lemmons’ film might be demographically broader, speaking to even younger audiences thanks to this visual palliating.

But beyond these strategic storytelling decisions, Lemmons’ greatest asset here is undoubtedly the tough-as-nails performance at the heart of her film. Erivo captures Tubman’s shining spirit and courage with compassion, beautifully reflecting her bravery on a toughened face she wears with pride. It’s thanks to her reflective commitment that the occasional wooden dialogue of “Harriet” flows with grace and the sporadic visual misfortunes don’t linger in one’s mind for too long. This might not be the optimal film to tribute an American hero who’s long been neglected on our screens, but Erivo’s performance might very well become a definitive one, synonymous with Tubman. And that’s not a bad place to start by any measure.

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to  RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

• Cynthia Erivo as Harriet Tubman
• Janelle Monáe as Marie
• Leslie Odom Jr. as William Still
• Joe Alwyn as Gideon Brodess
• Jennifer Nettles as Eliza Brodess
• Tim Guinee as Thomas Garrett

Writer (story by)

• Gregory Allen Howard
• Kasi Lemmons

Cinematographer

• Terence Blanchard
• Wyatt Smith

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Common Sense Media Review

Tubman biopic includes realistic violence, racist slurs.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Harriet is award-winning director Kasi Lemmons' historical drama about Harriet Tubman's evolution from being a young, married enslaved worker in Maryland, to her escape to Philadelphia, to her courage to become the "Moses" of the Underground Railroad. Starring Academy Award nominee…

Why Age 12+?

White characters use historically accurate weapons (as well as fists/feet) to pu

Frequent use of "N" word in reference to all Black people. Language also include

Couples kiss, touch, embrace (briefly). A Black man who hunts down enslaved peop

Adults are briefly shown toasting/drinking.

Any Positive Content?

Shows the importance of integrity, sticking to your convictions, paying attentio

Harriet Tubman is a courageous, devout, confident, dedicated conductor on the Un

Both Black and White abolitionists organize the Underground Railroad and train/h

Parents need to know that Harriet is award-winning director Kasi Lemmons ' historical drama about Harriet Tubman's evolution from being a young, married enslaved worker in Maryland, to her escape to Philadelphia, to her courage to become the "Moses" of the Underground Railroad. Starring Academy Award nominee Cynthia Erivo as Harriet, the film is intense: Expect frequent use of the "N" word, as well as one use of "f--king" and a few other terms. Violence is often upsetting and almost all aimed at Black characters, both free and enslaved. White enslavers/catchers pursue, beat, and even shoot Black men and women. A few characters die, both from brutal beatings and gun violence; some scenes show the violence close-up. Families are separated when people are sold, and enslaved workers tell stories of the horrible things they've experienced. Viewers will learn how Harriet interpreted her visions and seizures as prescient visions from God and how she ultimately took 19 trips into the South and escorted more than 300 enslaved people to freedom, demonstrating courage and integrity.

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Violence & Scariness

White characters use historically accurate weapons (as well as fists/feet) to pursue, beat, even shoot African Americans -- both free and enslaved. Several characters are beaten bloody, and one is killed in a brutal, close-up scene; another is shot. Young enslaved people tie up their enslavers' children to escape. Harriet wields and points her guns to protect herself and others she's leading to freedom. Scars shown on characters' backs. Lots of implied violence/talk of past violence, including stories of beatings and rape. Harriet leads armed soldiers in a Civil War battle. Harriet's enslaver menacingly talks to her very close, tells her she belongs to him. Family separations as the result of enslaved people being sold.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Frequent use of "N" word in reference to all Black people. Language also includes one nonsexual use of "f--king" (followed by the "N" word) as well as "Black bitch," "hell," and "damn." Harriet's young enslaver tells her that having a favorite enslaved worker is like having a favorite pig: You eventually have to sell it or eat it.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Couples kiss, touch, embrace (briefly). A Black man who hunts down enslaved people tells a White enslaver that he'll use his payment for "White hos."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Shows the importance of integrity, sticking to your convictions, paying attention to signs and visions, not allowing odds or risk to get in the way of making a difference, making sure no one takes away your dignity or self-worth. Some things are worth risking everything for. Undercurrent of hope throughout film: Harriet has strong conviction that enslavement will eventually be a thing of the past.

Positive Role Models

Harriet Tubman is a courageous, devout, confident, dedicated conductor on the Underground Railroad. She fearlessly travels to the South again and again to guide her family, friends, even strangers to freedom. Story also depicts the bravery of those who didn't/couldn't escape.

Diverse Representations

Both Black and White abolitionists organize the Underground Railroad and train/help Harriet learn best practices. She remains the primary protagonist, helping others by virtue of her own personal strength. In Maryland, free Black people secretly help enslaved people flee North. Clearly negative depictions of enslavers who want to stop their "property" from disappearing.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update .

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents Say (21)
• Kids Say (51)

Based on 21 parent reviews

Mind boggling!!!!

Excellent fictionalized version of a true hero's story, what's the story.

HARRIET starts during a Sunday church service for enslaved workers at the Maryland plantation where Araminta "Minty" Ross ( Cynthia Erivo ) lives with her free husband, John Tubman (Zackary Momo), and her family, including her free father, Ben Ross ( Clarke Peters ). When Ben and John plead with Master Brodess (Mike Marunde) to abide by his dead father's wishes to free Ben's wife and her offspring after a certain age, Brodess balks. Minty, who suffers spells that she believes are divine visions, begs God to strike down her enslaver. Brodess dies, and his son, Gideon ( Joe Alwyn ), decides to sell Minty. She escapes, leaving John behind, and finds her way up to free Philadelphia. Once in Pennsylvania, Minty renames herself Harriet Tubman and trains with prominent abolitionists like William Still ( Leslie Odom Jr. ) to become a fearless conductor on the Underground Railroad. Harriet returns time and time again to rescue both loved ones and complete strangers and guide them to freedom, all while Gideon Brodess hires mercenaries to track and capture the "Moses" who's helping local enslaved people escape.

Is It Any Good?

Erivo's intense, nuanced performance is an achievement, but the filmmakers' insistence on sanctifying Tubman makes an already powerful film unnecessarily melodramatic. Really, every role that the Tony Award winner takes on should include singing, because Erivo's voice is a thing of fierce and startling beauty. As it did in the fields where enslaved workers toiled and along the Underground Railroad, music plays an important role in the film. Kudos to director Kasi Lemmons for the sequences of Harriet's coded spirituals and the early moment in which actor-singer Jennifer Nettles (who plays Brodess' widow) sings along to the opening church service. If only Odom Jr. and Janelle Monáe (who's brilliant in a small but pivotal role as Harriet's Philadelphia friend/boarding-house landlord) could have sung on-screen, too.

The cast is wonderful and the movie's story is important, but Harriet suffers in its exploration of Tubman's condition. Lemmons and co-writer Gregory Allen Howard portray her traumatic brain injury as leading to actual divine prescience. The film credits that supposed skill with her ability not only to turn the right way and avoid capture (she never lost anyone she guided to freedom) but also to see the future -- like the time and place of a White man's death while fighting for the Confederacy. Tubman did believe that her visions were inspired by God, but Harriet 's focus on her spells as supernatural turns the film into a case for her sainthood and near invincibility rather than concentrating on the ongoing bravery and clarity of purpose she required to continue returning down South. The film is definitely worth seeing, but a little less about the visions and more about the woman would have made it even more powerful.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the historical aspects of Harriet . How much did you already know about Harriet Tubman? What new facts did you learn? Did anything make you want to do more research?

What are the character strengths that make Harriet Tubman a role model ? Why is she an important inspiration to Americans?

Discuss the violence and racist language in the movie. Is it necessary to the story? Why is it important for viewers to understand the violent nature of enslavement?

How is this movie different from, or similar to, others that explore the subject of racism and the history of enslavement in the United States? How does the stain of enslavement continue to impact the country? What are some other films that shed light on the far-reaching impact of this horrible practice?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 1, 2019
• On DVD or streaming : January 28, 2020
• Cast : Cynthia Erivo , Janelle Monáe , Leslie Odom Jr.
• Director : Kasi Lemmons
• Inclusion Information : Female directors, Black directors, Female actors, Bisexual actors, Black actors, Non-Binary actors, Pansexual actors, Queer actors
• Studio : Focus Features
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Great Girl Role Models , History
• Character Strengths : Courage , Integrity
• Run time : 125 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : thematic content throughout, violent material and language including racial epithets
• Award : NAACP Image Award - NAACP Image Award Nominee
• Last updated : December 12, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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‘Harriet’ Review: Becoming Moses

Cynthia Erivo and Kasi Lemmons bring Harriet Tubman to life onscreen.

• Share full article

By A.O. Scott

When I first started out as a film critic, I used to get regular mail — actual written letters, in envelopes — from a reader who wanted to know why Hollywood hadn’t made an action movie about Harriet Tubman. I didn’t have a good answer ( other than the obvious answer ), but the question was a good one. Tubman’s remarkable biography has all the right elements: danger, surprise and the kind of against-all-odds heroism that brings people to the movies.

“Harriet,” directed by Kasi Lemmons ( “Eve’s Bayou,” “Black Nativity” ) and anchored by Cynthia Erivo ’s precise and passionate performance in the title role, might not be exactly what my correspondent had in mind, but it is a rousing and powerful drama, respectful of both the historical record and the cravings of modern audiences. The story of Tubman’s escape from enslavement on a Maryland farm and her subsequent leadership in the underground railroad is conveyed in bold, emphatic strokes. Villainy and virtue are clearly marked, and the evil that Tubman resisted is illuminated alongside her bravery.

Before she chose Harriet as her “freedom name,” and before she became the mysterious liberator known to slaves and their masters as Moses, Tubman is called Minty Ross (short for Araminta ). Like her mother and siblings, she is the property of the Brodess family, though both her father, Ben Ross (Clarke Peters ) and her husband, John Tubman (Zackary Momoh ), are free.

One of Lemmons’s achievements is to show that their freedom, rather than mitigating the horrors of chattel slavery, emphasizes its cruelty and also its moral dishonesty. It is more than Minty can bear, and so, with the encouragement of her father and the help of a free black minister ( Vondie Curtis-Hal l ), she runs.

Reaching Philadelphia, she is welcomed by William Still (Leslie Odom Jr. ) and taken in by Marie Buchanon ( Janelle Monáe ), antislavery activists whose ease and urbanity astonish her. “Harriet” pays tribute to their efforts while noting the tactical and temperamental differences between its heroine and her allies, many of whom had been born and raised in freedom. She is both part of a movement and something of a maverick within it, taking her instructions directly from God and setting out on missions that her colleagues often regard as irresponsibly risky.

These missions take her back into the land of her former owners, whose decadence and corruption are represented by Eliza , the Brodess matriarch ( Jennifer Nettles ), and her nasty son Gideon (Joe Alwyn ). Harriet is determined to liberate the members of her family, which means evading both white slave-catchers and an especially fearsome black bounty hunter named Bigger Long (Omar J. Dorsey ).

The chases are suspenseful, and the violence is fairly restrained. The pain of enslavement is written on Erivo’s face and on the scarred bodies of the people Harriet brings out of bondage, but the full brutality of the masters and their minions is more implied than shown.

“Harriet” isn’t an immersion in horror like Steve McQueen’s “Twelve Years a Slave,” and it doesn’t have the imaginative sweep and complexity of literary depictions of slavery like Edward P. Jones’s “The Known World,” Colson Whitehead’s “Underground Railroad” or Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.” It is more like one of those biographies of historical figures intended for young readers: accessible, emotionally direct and artfully simplified.

The exception — the aspect of the film that suggests some of the strangeness and intricacies of a reality that is both unimaginably distant and not even past — is Erivo herself. Perhaps as a result of an injury inflicted by her enslavers when she was a child, Harriet is subject to religious visions, “fits” that impart the gift of prophecy. (Joan of Arc’s name is invoked, in addition to Moses’s.) This is a kind of super power, but Erivo’s performance is grounded in the recognizable human emotions of grief, jealousy, anger and love. There is also a formidable intelligence at work, both tactical and political, and an elusive, almost mysterious quality as well. This is someone you want to know more about.

Rated PG-13. Cruelty and valor. Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes.

A.O. Scott is the co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott

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Harriet Reviews

Lemmons' direction does not lessen the famous story.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 8, 2024

A riveting performance by Cynthia Erivo as freedom fighter Harriet Tubman.

Full Review | Dec 7, 2022

Cynthia Erivo puts in a potent turn in the title role.

Full Review | Sep 28, 2022

Shining through the haze of studio formula is Erivo who puts the entire movie on her back. Her performance captures the spirit of Harriet Tubman which has shamefully been missing from the big screen.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 21, 2022

It's a good movie... I think it's going to encourage some deep conversations about history.

Full Review | Sep 16, 2021

Despite its flaws, Harriet gives due diligence to the role faith played in Tubman's life.

Full Review | Aug 12, 2021

A momentous figure like Harriet Tubman deserves to be honored in every way possible. Unfortunately, Harriet is just a so-so celebration of her life, delving too much into storytelling tricks instead of letting Tubman's story lead the way.

Full Review | Feb 17, 2021

While Harriet may not be a masterpiece, it's worth seeing for its fantastic lead performance and its important message.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 1, 2021

The movie that celebrates her life occasionally errs in its excess-it covers a great deal of ground-but the light it shines on Tubman and her accomplishments burns brightly.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 31, 2021

There is something here that hooks you, that has you feeling better upon leaving [the theater] than when you sat down.

Full Review | Jan 29, 2021

The movie unproductively splits the difference between reverence and thrills. The thriller scenes aren't particularly suspenseful, and the dramatic stuff isn't particularly graceful.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jan 28, 2021

Cynthia Erivo delivers a stirring performance as iconic American abolitionist Harriet Tubman... But the movie falls apart in its final third, departing from history in an implausible bid to turn Tubman into a gun-toting superhero.

Full Review | Dec 21, 2020

Embodying Harriet Tubman is the talented Cynthia Erivo who gives a richly textured performance.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Nov 22, 2020

'Harriet' is not a film about slavery. It's a powerful, inspirational and redemptive film about a woman who changed the course of American history.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 15, 2020

Director Kasi Lemmons makes an admirable attempt at bringing Tubman's story to the big screen and even makes it more cinematic than its "glorified TV movie" criticisms have suggested.

Full Review | Sep 23, 2020

Importing an actor to portray her, no matter how talented Erivo is, strikes the wrong note, so to speak.

Full Review | Sep 17, 2020

Harriet is the kind of movie I would have liked to have seen in high school when learning about the Underground Railroad and the fight against slavery.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 16, 2020

It doesn't mean that Harriet as a film doesn't have value - the merit alone is worth telling, especially in this cinematic climate. But it also represents a missed opportunity to delve deeply into an aspect of history that's simply not taught enough.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 3, 2020

This is Erivo's movie and she's an incendiary presence, capable of immense sensitivity as well as soaring defiance.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 16, 2020

Despite the solid performance from Cynthia Erivo, it is still an indulgent, predictable and not very moving biopic. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 6, 2020

Harriet Review

It’s been long past time for Harriet Tubman to get her due on the big screen. The infamous abolitionist was as close to a real-life superhero as it gets, guiding more than 300 slaves to freedom — which earned her the nickname of ‘Moses’ — and serving as a Union spy during the American Civil War. After eye-catching performances in Bad Times At The El Royale and Widows , Erivo was an exciting choice to bring the iconic figure to life, but Kasi Lemmons ’ biopic makes the fatal mistake of revering its subject without getting under her skin and illuminating her humanity.

Part of the problem lies in the attempt to make Harriet hit several beats of Tubman’s life rather than take the Selma route and focus on a shorter, more significant time period. Lemmons and co-screenwriter Gregory Allen Howard chart Tubman’s 100-mile escape to freedom and her work with the ‘Underground Railroad’, but we don’t slow down enough to fully connect with our titular character.

Tubman's perfectly timed psychic visions drain much of the tension from key sequences.

More issues arise with an on over-the-top and too frequently used score by the usually reliable Terence Blanchard which takes a lot of weight out of many an inspirational speech. Additionally, a narrative device depicting Tubman’s visions from God reads as more supernatural than spiritual, with her perfectly timed psychic visions draining much of the tension from key sequences.

Even with all these shortcomings, Erivo’s Harriet is almost always riveting to watch, especially once she begins to assert herself and come into her power. She’s ably supported by Leslie Odom Jr. as fellow abolitionist William Still, and Janelle Monáe ’s boarding-house proprietor Marie Buchanon. The latter provides rare moments of intimacy, as Marie — born into freedom instead of bondage — is forced to reckon with her preconceptions through her friendship with Harriet. The next Tubman biopic would do well to have more of these human moments, and less by-the-numbers heroics.

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‘Harriet’ Review: An American Heroine Gets Her Biopic

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Cynthia Erivo captures the spirit of Underground Railroad freedom fighter Harriet Tubman with enough ferocity and feeling to set this biopic soaring. The passionate acting of this British dynamo — a Tony winner for The Color Purple on Broadway — comes in handy when the film itself threatens to trip on its own hard-sold uplift. Harriet surely doesn’t need to push the importance of Tubman’s story to the Civil Rights movement, though it does, disappointingly and often. Luckily, Erivo is always there to remind us what counts in this dramatization of one woman’s heroic fight against the odds.

Director Kasi Lemmons ( Eve’s Bayou ), who wrote the script with Gregory Allen Howard, ( Remember the Titans ), opens the story in 1849, when Harriet — then a slave known as Minty— fought the idea that she was the personal property of Maryland plantation owner Edward Brodess (Michael Marunde). Her husband, John (Zackary Momoh), a free man, has found legal proof that Brodess’ great-granddaddy left a will freeing Minty, her siblings and their mother (Vanessa Bell Calloway). Brodess, of course, is having none of that. That’s when he and his son Gideon (Joe Alwyn) decide to put the rebellious woman up for sale.

Minty has visions of the future that come when she communicates with God, The glory of Erivo’s voice as she sings spirituals in the field adds poignance to the scenes when the resistance leader says goodbye to her husband, mother, father (Clarke Peters) and family,  and runs away to the free state of Pennsylvania.. A local minister (Vondie Curtis Hall), known her helping fugitive slaves, offers advice. But Minty is pretty much on her own.

The great cinematographer Jon Toll ( Braveheart, Legends of the Fall ), aided by Terence Blanchard’s celestial score, brings a lustrous beauty to Harriet’s harrowing, 100-mile journey. It’s in Philadelphia that she meets Marie Buchanan (an outstanding Janelle Monae ), who finds her a paying job as a maid and a gun to protect herself herself against a retaliatory white South. But our heroine finds her real vocation through abolitionist William Still (Leslie Odom Jr., the original Aaron Burr in Hamilton ), who records her history and instills her with a desire to lead rescue missions for other runaway slaves.

Minty changes her name to Harriet Tubman, and is lit from within with a fire to lead others out of bondage. Her increasing fame puts her in a dangerous spotlight, especially when Harriet joins the Underground Railroad and becomes a conductor whose reach extends to Canada. Known as a female Moses, Harriet — who sometimes dressed as a man — becomes the face of a movement while resisting becoming a martyr to It.

It’s a big role, written with dimensions of sainthood that might defeat a lesser actor. But Erivo is up to every challenge, never losing Harriet’s compassionate humanity even as the film moves to the Civil War and pumps up the action at the expense of characterization. Tubman’s place in anti-slavery annals looms so large that her life virtually spills off the screen, as if no single movie could hold her. But there’s Erivo, hardly more than five feet tall like the dynamo she’s playing, giving us a woman in full on her march into history.

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‘harriet’: film review | tiff 2019.

Cynthia Erivo plays Harriet Tubman, the courageous Underground Railroad conductor who became a hero of the anti-slavery movement, in Kasi Lemmons' bio-drama 'Harriet.'

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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The Obama administration’s plan to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill remains in limbo thanks to the stalling of the Trump government, but Kasi Lemmons ‘ lustrous epic treatment of the legendary freedom fighter’s life etches an iconic portrait for better or worse, resonating more as a symbolic figurehead than a nuanced flesh-and-blood character. Cynthia Erivo is a powerful physical presence in the title role and Harriet recounts an important chapter in American history too long neglected by Hollywood. If the movie doesn’t escape the hagiographic trap of the reverent biopic, it nonetheless will move audiences with a taste for large-canvas inspirational drama.

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Lemmons, who first turned heads with her 2004 indie debut, the poetic Southern Gothic Eve’s Bayou , doesn’t exactly tread lightly here. That tendency is evident from the very first widescreen frame, as Terence Blanchard’s lush score swells into soaring uplift mode over a rain-soaked field, aggressively signaling emotional cues before we’ve encountered a single character. The use of music is often heavy-handed, one exception being the thrill of hearing Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman” over a montage of daring Underground Railroad rescues.

Release date: Nov 01, 2019

The screenplay by Gregory Allen Howard and Lemmons begins in 1849 with the brutal experience that sparks the freedom-or-death fire in the belly of the slave then known as Minty. Her husband John (Zackary Momoh), a free man, has obtained legal documentation to verify that under the terms of a will left behind by the great-grandfather of Maryland plantation owner Edward Brodess (Michael Marunde), Minty, her siblings and their mother (Vanessa Bell Calloway) should have been freed more than a decade ago.

John states his case calmly and respectfully, explaining that they want to start a family and wish for their children to be born free. But Brodess rips up the paper and dismisses them with indignation, telling his son Gideon (Joe Alwyn) he should have sold the troublesome Minty years ago.

Having nursed him through typhoid as a child, Minty holds a strange position for Gideon, mingling possession with obligation and devotion. He’s unsettled by the intensity of her prayers, and evidence that she communicates directly with God is conveyed throughout the movie in black-and-white vision sequences revealing flashes of the future to her. But a sudden change in the family’s circumstances causes Gideon to act belatedly on his father’s advice and put Minty up for sale. The prospect of being separated from her family is the impetus she needs to make an escape attempt, but she refuses to let John run with her, arguing that capture will cost him his freedom.

From then on through much of its two-hour running time, Harriet becomes a chase movie, with action sequences driven by Blanchard’s propulsive score and John Toll’s agile camera. There are brief emotional markers on the journey, especially early on, as Minty says farewell to her mother in the field by singing a traditional spiritual, embraces her father (the great Clarke Peters , underused) and receives guidance from the local Reverend (charismatic veteran Vondie Curtis Hall), whose church serves as a waystation for fugitive slaves. But despite Erivo’s tenacity in the role, the drama feels more stately and impressive than urgent and affecting.

It’s never uninvolving though, and the script does a solid job of tracing the formation of a courageous freedom fighter out of a scared runaway. That process happens once Minty arrives in Philadelphia and marks her liberation by choosing a new name, combining those of her mother and husband to become Harriet Tubman. She meets abolitionist William Still ( Leslie Odom Jr. ), who records her history along with those of other fugitive slaves; and Marie Buchanan ( Janelle Monae ), an elegant business owner born in freedom who sets Harriet up in a paying job as a domestic worker.

It’s Marie who gives her a gun, teaches her how to pass for a free woman and secures her fake ID papers a year later when Harriet insists on taking the dangerous 100-mile journey back to Maryland to bring John with her to the free state of Pennsylvania. That doesn’t go as planned, but she ends up shepherding a party of eight to freedom, including her brothers. Five of them come from the financially struggling Brodess plantation, described by Gideon as “three bucks, a female and foal” — words that underscore the horrific thinking of the time and place, that slaves were akin to livestock.

Lemmons introduces a welcome strain of low-key humor as Harriet’s rescue missions become more audacious even while slave-owners grow more ruthless in their bids to stop the swelling tide of runaways. The influx in Philadelphia gets to be so numerous that William can barely record their histories fast enough. Harriet’s success rate prompts him to introduce her to the secret organizing committee of the Underground Railroad, making her an official conductor, and her exploits make her notorious in the South, initially as an unidentified “slave stealer” dubbed Moses.

It’s a gripping story, for the most part efficiently told. But the frequent interludes of religious rapture, during which Harriet often senses danger in time to change course and get her charges to safety, contribute to the sense of invulnerable sainthood that keeps the central character at a slight remove.

When Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, allowing for escapees to be tracked and captured even in Northern states, Harriet’s rescue trips extend from 100 miles to 600 as Canada becomes the only safe haven. But the script becomes preachy around this point, indulging in big movie-ish speeches designed to reinforce Harriet’s valiant sense of purpose and proto-feminist spirit. Also, once Gideon learns the true identity of the liberator raising the hackles of the white Southerners and causing them to place blame on him, a confrontation is set up as an inevitability.

That encounter doesn’t pack the dramatic weight to provide a fully satisfying payoff, and Harriet’s involvement as an armed assault leader during the Civil War is given somewhat rushed handling. The unprecedented nature of her military role is conveyed mainly in onscreen text at the end of the movie, along with her subsequent dedication to the women’s suffrage movement.

British actress Erivo, who won a Tony Award for her Broadway debut in The Color Purple , hits all the requisite notes of flintiness and selfless bravery born of suffering, determination and rage. But the movie bathes Harriet in the hallowed light of nobility without providing much access to what she’s thinking and feeling; its heavy bias toward action scenes leaves too little room for character study. Tubman is an extraordinary figure with a unique place in American history, but although Lemmons’ film is an admirable bid to do this giant of the anti-slavery movement justice, it’s a monument to her heroism rather than a full-blooded incarnation.

Production companies: Stay Gold Features, Debra Martin Chase Productions Distributor: Focus Features Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Joe Alwyn, Clarke Peters, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Omar J. Dorsey, Henry Hunter Hill, Tim Guinee, Janelle Monae, Vondie Curtis Hall, Jennifer Odessa Nettles, Deborah Olayinka Ayorinde, Michael Marunde, Tory Kittles, Zackary Momoh Director: Kasi Lemmons Screenwriter: Gregory Allen Howard, Kasi Lemmons Producers: Debra Martin Chase, Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Gregory Allen Howard Executive producers: Josh McLaughlin, Shea Kammer, Nnamdi Asomugha, Bill Benenson, Pen Densham, John Watson, Kristina Kendall, Elizabeth Koch, Charles D. King Director of photography: John Toll Production designer: Warren Alan Young Costume designer: Paul Tazewell Music: Terence Blanchard Editor: Wyatt Smith Casting: Kim Coleman Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Gala Presentations)

Rated PG-13, 125 minutes

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Cynthia Erivo brings an American icon to imperfect life in earnest biopic Harriet

Her place on the $20 bill has been delayed, maybe indefinitely; but more than a century on, Harriet Tubman finally has her biopic. (As a festival director drily pointed out at the movie’s world premiere in Toronto, there have been over 20 films centered on Civil War commander George Armstrong Custer, but zero about America’s most famed abolitionist — until now).

If its aim to inspire and educate inevitably leaves the movie feeling a little classroom-bound, Harriet is still an impassioned, edifying portrait of a remarkable life, and a fitting showcase for the considerable talents of its star, Tony-winning British actress Cynthia Erivo.

It’s 1849 in Maryland and Araminta “Minty” Ross has never known a world outside of slavery, though her husband is a free man; when her young master, Gideon ( The Favourite ’s Joe Alwyn, leaning hard on petty entitlement and pretty hair) refuses to let the pair live together, she impulsively breaks for freedom in the North.

Miraculously, she survives the treacherous 100-mile trek on her own, and lands in Philadelphia to find an entire network of sympathetic brothers- and sisters- in arms, including the Underground Railroad conductor William Still ( Hamilton ’s excellent Leslie Odom Jr.) and a glamorous boarding-house matron named Marie (Janelle Monáe).

Given the opportunity, Minty gladly sheds her slave name, taking on her mother’s first and husband’s last to become Harriet Tubman. Mere survival makes her restless, though; within months, she’s telling William she wants to return for her loved ones, whatever the risk. And she proves to have a singular gift for spiriting captives away under impossible circumstances, soon earning the deified nickname Moses.

Director and co-writer Kasi Lemmons ( Black Nativity) has an unfortunate penchant for color-treated flashbacks that evoke low-budget TV recreations. And her choice to portray Tubman as having a sort of supernatural communion with God — who often comes quite literally to her aid — may be its own act of faith, but has the odd affect of diminishing her very real accomplishments; was her own ordinary, extraordinary bravery not enough? (You can’t blame Lemmonsm though, for finding almost any excuse to let Erivo sing; so did last year’s Bad Times at the El Royale .)

Even as the story paints Tubman with the broad, noble brush of sainthood — her only flaw, if she has one, is supreme stubbornness in the face of adversity — Erivo keeps her grounded in something fiercely and gratifyingly real; a woman clearly meant for the history books, but not yet entirely hardened into myth. B

( Harriet debuted at the Toronto International Festival and will come to theaters in wide-release Nov. 1)

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Review: ‘Harriet’ charts an emotionally honest tale of abolitionist’s life

Cynthia erivo is outstanding as harriet tubman in this biopic about the famed underground railroad leader.

It’s just in the past 10 years that American movies have come to terms with slavery as an unalloyed evil. So it’s only now, after 100 years of feature films and a century and a half since the end of the Civil War, that a strong and emotionally honest film could be made about the life of Harriet Tubman.

“Harriet,” from director Kasi Lemmons , mixes in some fictional elements, but it follows the broad outline of Tubman’s story. She was born in Maryland into slavery. She escaped when she feared she might be sold and made her way to freedom in the North. And then Tubman kept going back to the South, to rescue family and friends. She became known as Moses, a dreaded figure among the slave-holding classes who led their slaves out of bondage.

In fact, Harriet Tubman should never have been a slave at all, even according to the laws that existed at the time. In an early scene, she approaches her slave master, Edward Brodess, with legal proof that she should be free, having been born to a freedman. The master looks at the document, tears it up and tells her to go back to work. He doesn’t know it, but he has just made a terrible mistake, and not only in moral terms. Had he let her go, Tubman might have spared his family a whole lot of grief.

We can read the injustice of slavery on the backs of the slaves, but we read the corruption of it in the faces and demeanor of the slaveholders. Lemmons understands this and further understands that some things are so wrong that they distort the people who commit those wrongs. Such people close off part of their souls and become perverse versions of what they might have been. Get enough people like that, thinking and doing wrong, and you have a perverse society.

This is what Lemmons and co-screenwriter Gregory Allen Howard present here, slaveholders who are not evil so much as spiritually misshapen. Thus, we see, for example, Harriet’s former mistress, Mrs. Brodess (Jennifer Nettles from the country duo Sugarland), panicking that all her slaves have run away. She’s in anguish and believes herself a victim. “Our stature in this community is measured by Negroes!” she wails. Boohoo.

If such characters have lost touch with the voice inside, Harriet, as played by Cynthia Erivo, is their opposite, a visionary in contact with the essential. We learn that she sustained a head injury that cracked her skull, leaving her susceptible to headaches and spells, but also believing that God was talking to her directly, like an American Joan of Arc. Watch Erivo in this movie, and you’ll believe it, too.

Maryland and Pennsylvania are close on the map, but Harriet’s first escape required that she travel 100 miles, most of it on foot. When she finally arrives in Pennsylvania, the sky is bluer, and colors are brighter. Lemmons makes Pennsylvania look like freedom. Suddenly, city streets look like normal streets, with all people going about their business, in harmony. We experience the relief of that, the sanity of it, so that when Harriet wants to go back to Maryland to free her family, we feel what that means. We know we feel it, because part of us wishes she would just stay in the North and relax.

When Tubman began her career in the Underground Railroad, there was no Fugitive Slave Law. A slave from a slave state could become free just by crossing into a free state, like a German going from East to West Berlin during the Cold War. But that changed. Eventually, it wasn’t enough for Tubman to get people from Maryland to Pennsylvania. She had to get people from Maryland to Canada. This required an intricate network of abolitionists, and the movie, to some degree, touches on this fascinating aspect of history.

At times, “Harriet” is a little too romantic — never quite schmaltzy — but it feels like a movie perhaps a bit more than it should. Still, it’s effective and, at times, moving, and it has a major asset in Erivo.

Erivo is barely taller than the diminutive Tubman and seems able to look 25 or 40, at will, roughly the ages of Tubman over the course of the story. Most importantly, she exudes steadfastness and purpose. If she pointed in a direction, anyone with any sense would just shut up and follow her.

M “Harriet”: Drama. Starring Cynthia Erivo and Jennifer Nettles. Directed by Kasi Lemmons. Theaters and Showtimes  (PG-13. 125 minutes.)

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• Mick LaSalle Follow: Mick LaSalle Mick LaSalle is The San Francisco Chronicle's film critic. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @MickLaSalle

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