51
‘She’s about
5'1", but
she has the
presence of a
7'2" basketball
player.’
OMAR
J. DORSEY,
actor, in Entertainment
Weekly, on Harriet star
Cynthia ErivoNorton in Motherless Brooklyn:
Child of a Lethem godTubman (Erivo) is a heroine for the agessomeTimes iT’s hard To conceive
of awe-inspiring historical figures like
abolitionist hero Harriet Tubman as
living, breathing people. But a single
visual cue can make a difference: a
recently discovered photograph shows
a younger Tubman, a contemplative,
vibrant-looking woman in a stylish
dress. That’s the Tubman
director Kasi Lemmons
brings to life in her carefully
observed biographical film
Harriet: it’s as if Tubman
walks among us, melting
away the years between her
life and ours.
Cynthia Erivo plays
Tubman, whom we first meet
as a slave—her birth name is
Araminta Ross—on a farm in
Bucktown, Md., circa 1849.
She’s married to a free black
man and yearns for freedom herself,
at least partly to escape the sinister
advances of her master’s son (an oily
Joe Alwyn). Araminta pulls off a daring
escape, even leaping from a bridge when
she finds herself cornered by the dogs
and men on horseback who are quite
literally hunting her. She makes her way,
at great risk, to Philadelphia, buildingREVIEW
Courting danger en route to freedoma new life for herself with the help of
a sophisticated businesswoman and
adviser (played, with glittering vitality,
by Janelle Monáe). But the woman
who now calls herself Harriet Tubman
can’t forget those she left behind. She
returns again and again to Maryland’s
Eastern Shore, often in disguise, to guide
other slaves to freedom.
The dangers increase with
each trip.
Lemmons—who has
directed some splendid
pictures over the years,
among them Eve’s Bayou
and The Caveman’s
Valentine—is fully alive to
both the danger and beauty
of the landscape of the
American South—even the
shape of a tree, craggy and
twisted or lush with leaves,
could be either a warning or a welcome.
Erivo shines through it all, giving us
a glimpse into the mind of a steadfast
woman of purpose. Her Tubman is as
bold and alive as the woman staring at us
from that photograph. The directness of
her gaze is the ultimate challenge. —s.Z.HARRIET opens in theaters Nov. 1REVIEW
Motherless
adopted
Fans of Jonathan Lethem’s
inventive 1999 detective
novel Motherless Brooklyn
will find Edward Norton’s film
adaptation almost completely
unrecognizable. That’s
because Norton—who also
wrote, produced and stars in
the film—jettisoned most of
the plot and made up his own,
moving the action from 1990s
Brooklyn to the 1950s.
But there’s something to be
said for grand ambition, and
Norton goes for broke here.
He does preserve the most
important element of Lethem’s
book, the hero: Lionel Essrog
(played, in a deft performance,
by Norton himself) is a
gumshoe who suffers from
Tourette’s syndrome—
seemingly incongruous
phrases and sentences tumble
from his mouth, unbidden, in a
jazzy word salad. The plot—a
labyrinthine mystery involving
a housing-rights activist (the
marvelous Gugu Mbatha-Raw)
and a power-mad bureaucrat
modeled on infamous master
builder Robert Moses (played,
with delightful huffiness, by
Alec Baldwin)—is cluttered.
But if you can forgive Norton
that, his re-creation of 1950s
New York is a joy to behold.
He even brings the old Penn
Station back from the dead—
which may be the go-big-or-go-
home gesture of 2019. —S.Z.
MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN
opens in theaters Nov. 1