Antebellum Parent Guide

Veronica Henley (Janelle Monáe), a successful author and expert on the history of American Constitutional law and race, has found herself out of her depth. Although she has a good job and a loving family, Veronica is far from home. Very far. She’s found herself on a plantation somewhere in the deep South, a plantation run by overseers in Confederate uniforms and worked by other African-Americans who have also been abducted. They live in huts, pick cotton, and are expected to be available and subservient to any of the ruthless white people in charge. But as unpleasant as it was to get in, it’s going to be even harder to get out.

I think the best way to describe this film is “harrowing” – and deliberately so. The premise is essentially the worst actors from the Charlottesville Rally acting on that famous quote from The Great Gatsby: “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!”. The antagonists of the film are rabid white supremacists, hellbent on recreating the supposed glories of the antebellum south. It’s interesting to note that this has nothing to do with states’ rights: they just want to own other people and treat them like chattel. In that sense, I suppose, they are doing an excellent job recreating the past.

Although I think the premise is fascinating, the execution is a little hit-and-miss. Janelle Monáe shines in the lead role, but the writing occasionally lets her down. Some of the dialogue is a little clunky, and the film doesn’t always seem confident about how it wants to explain its premise. (Compare this to Get Out. The villainous Armitage family seem largely crazy, but by the end of the film their actions are explained and their plans exposed.) I’m still not entirely sure what the end-goal of the Confederate maniacs in Antebellum was, apart from torturing African-Americans. The film keeps hinting at broader motives which it never explores.

This is, as you may have already guessed, not a great choice for family viewing. For an R-rated horror flick, this does pull a lot of punches and the violence isn’t as intensely graphic as many other films in the genre. The unpleasantness comes through the context and the visceral reminders of slavery which are disturbing enough without extra gore on top. The sexual violence is thankfully cautious - it’s just explicit enough that you know what’s happening, but there’s no nudity and a minimum of actual activity.

If you can stomach the content, there’s an interesting movie in here somewhere, but it’s somewhat muffled. I had really hoped that this film would go deeper on the fundamental cultural problems that cause this kind of hate, and while it does mention them, it’s never quite as much as I wanted. Hopefully, it still manages to be a conversation starter about some of the broader problems in our society, and gets people interested enough to do some serious reading about racial justice. It’s well shot, well cast, and well set-up: it just lets itself down on the ultimate execution.