Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Keke Palmer, Common, Jonny Lee Miller, Caius Charles, Madelon Curtis, Kenneth Farmer, Natasha Yvette Williams, Jaxon Goldenberg, Craig Stark, Alicia Witt, Davod Andrew Nash, Jim McKeny, Katie Gill, Sharonne Lanier, Janet L. Burns, Durrell Lyons, Roderick Dorsey, Eddie King.
To own another human being is an abhorrence.
It is a statement of fact, a truth that is universal, and yet often ignored by those by whose own admission they see it is a right, an admission declared for all to see without a shred of shame in their hearts, that to enslave a person, another human being, is to attain a status…it is sick, depraved, and yet still goes on in the world. Across all cultures, men, women, children, all creeds, all colours, slavery is business.
It is natural perhaps to turn your head away, to insist that such a depraved act exists only in a period of time that we are not now part of; and yet the news will inform you that you are wrong, that another man had been found locked away on a farmstead, that a number have been found hidden away and kept like battery hens, a slave to another kind of monster, a boy, a girl named Alice, all have their stories to tell, all with the haunting memories, of the fears and damage that the whip and the hain can bring.
Slavery is not of the past, it is very much part of our present, and in Krystin Ver Linden’s near mirroring to the blacksploitation films of the early 70s, and to the seismic career of Pam Grier as she became a trail blazing icon for black women across America and the world, Alice is a perfect slow burner of a film which starts to heat up as the reveal of the young woman’s situation becomes clear.
Keke Palmer portrays the titular character with an initial wide-eyed grace, giving the audience no doubt of her fears and merciless treatment at the hands of her owner, the sadistic and cruel Paul, cast wonderfully in the guise of Jonny Lee Miller, and how an attitude can change everything once the deception is made clear. It is in the confrontation with the plantation owner’s wife, Rachel, given sheer scope and energy by the wonderous Alicia Witt, that the drama unfolds, and from there in that slow burn becomes a conflagration, an explosion of rightful anger and promise – an ending that justifies the vision and approach by the director and creatives.
Perhaps we are lucky if we have never met an Alice, but that only means we have ignored what is going on right in front of us; slavery is a modern disease that we must forever be vigilant against, and in Alice we are shown the repercussions of its sins.
Ian D. Hall