‘Alice’ Review: American Slavery and Black Power Collide
This time-bending thriller about a woman who escapes from slavery in 1973, starring Keke Palmer and Common, is a vapid historical romp.In “Alice,” a coming-of-age revenge thriller from the writer-director Krystin Ver Linden, the eponymous main character (Keke Palmer, “Akeelah and the Bee,” “Hustlers”) successfully flees an abusive enslaver (Jonny Lee Miller) only to discover the year is actually 1973. Yes, 1973, and she and her fellow “domestics” have been trapped in a century-old bubble on a Georgia plantation, where not much has changed since Emancipation.The events that the movie says it is inspired by reportedly date back to the 1960s, but Ver Linden pushes the clock forward to the Blaxploitation era so that she can achieve her fait accompli: After reading a stack of encyclopedias provided by her savior and sidekick, Frank (Common), and taking marching orders from Pam Grier in “Coffy,” Alice morphs into an Afro-sporting Black Power heroine ready to free her kin back on the plantation and exact revenge on her white captors.Ver Linden wants us to view Alice as an empowered freedom fighter. Instead she lands as a caricature of one, as the film never really metabolizes or unpacks its conceit: the bonkers time-traveling predicament of its protagonist.Instead we’re made to sit through a microwave-dinner version of Black history — from slavery to civil rights to the Black Power movement — all while Palmer’s character shouts inadvertently comedic one-liners at her white enslavers like, “I don’t give a damn about your life!” Aside from the steadying cinematography (Alex Disenhof) and a few moments when Palmer leans into the more subtle aspects of her range, “Alice” takes the historic struggles for Black freedom in America and exploits them in the most vapid ways possible.AliceRated R for racial slurs, violence, torture and sexual assault. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More
