’Til distance do us part. Not death. These are the vows of the slave – or “domestic” – in Krystin Ver Linden’s Alice. But death may always interfere. And distance – through space and through time – proves to be but an illusion. Alice (Keke Palmer) is a slave. She wants for liberation, daring for escape from the Spanish moss-covered Georgian plantation where she was raised. Freedom, it turns out, is just beyond her front door. All she needs is distance.
When Alice finally musters up the courage to make her getaway from the abusive and cruel Paul (Jonny Lee Miller), she stumbles upon a horrifying reality. She has been free all along.
Turns out, it’s actually 1973. The Civil Rights Movement is well underway. Her captors – not unlike M. Night Shyamalan’s villagers – are living in a hellish yesteryear just off the highway. A few obvious anachronisms like a buried Zippo lighter or an old lady ruminating on her time spent as a dancer in Chicago clues us in to the coming first-act reveal (not technically a spoiler since it’s mention explicitly in the film’s log line) but the twist instead feels just kind of clunky and off-putting. Exploitatively empty.
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Finally free from bondage, Alice is taken in by a truck driver with a now-muted revolutionary spirit named Frank (Common) as the film takes a hard turn from faux-historical fiction to Blaxploitation film. Alice essentially becomes Antebellum meets Django Unchained, adding to the recent slate of “secret slavery” thrillers. Conceptually, Alice borrows much from the somewhat maligned Antebellum – while transplanting it to the Civil Rights Movement – but stylistically it’s much more Django, 70s soundtrack and all.
Tonally, Alice is all over the place, the disparate parts of it failing to gel into a greater picture. Somewhat sluggish pacing and shallow character development doesn’t help. We’re meant to be drawn into Alice’s plight but the film can’t bridge the distance between concept and execution. As a result, the audience is left feeling increasingly distant from what Alice wants to be and what it actually is. Keke Palmer’s emotional central performance, powerful and poignantly reminiscent of 70’s Pam Grier, and Linden’s always-stylish direction and often striking imagery keeps Alice from being a complete misfire but one is left with the distinct impression that this combination of talent could achieve things greater than what we’ve seen in Alice.
CONCLUSION: Part Blaxploitation film, part “secret slave” drama, ‘Alice’ is a second-rate jumble of moods and concepts that never quite coalesce. Keke Palmer almost saves the movie in her notable central turn as the eponymous lead.
C
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By: Matt Oakes
Started blogging about film in college when the university paper wouldn’t have him. Dislikes your consensus film Twitter favorites. Devotee of horror movies that make him die a little inside. Catches films at festivals when he can. Proud SFCS and OFCS member and Tomatometer-approved critic. Editor-in-chief of Silver Screen Riot.
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