CLOSE '12 Years A Slave' tells the story of Solomon Northup who was a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt. VPC 
 
 Set mostly in the pre-Civil War south, director Steve McQueen has fashioned a deeply evocative, and brilliantly acted drama, that graphically and poetically depicts the wide-ranging evils of slavery. 
 
 Chiwetel Ejofor stars as protagonist Solomon Northup in '12 Years A Slave.' (Photo: Jaap Buitendijk, Fox Searchlight) Story Highlights USA TODAY Review: **** out of four 
 
 Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Paul Giamatti, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Sarah Paulson 
 
 Rated R; Runtime: 2 hours, 13 minutes; opens Friday in select cities 
 
 The harrowing 12 Years a Slave is a mesmerizing period drama for the ages. 
 
 Based on a true story, Slave (**** out of four; rated R; opens Friday in select cities) has probably the finest cast of any film this year. Heading the list of stellar portrayals is the masterful performance of Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup, a cultured black man living free in upstate New York who in 1841 is abducted and sold into slavery. Subjected to appalling cruelty for a dozen years, Northup perseveres. 
 
 "I don't want to survive," he proclaims movingly when urged to keep his head down and work uncomplainingly. "I want to live." 
 
 Thoroughly convincing as a violinist and family man whose world is far removed from the Southern cotton fields he is thrust into, Ejiofor is a consistently dignified presence whose performance must certainly figure into the Oscar running. 
 
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 TRAILERS: Coming soon to theaters 
 
 The film is based on Northup's memoir, and director Steve McQueen's deliberately paced style ideally suits the material. McQueen's juxtaposition of intensely savage scenes with lush natural beauty, interlaced with ambient sound, is a disturbingly vivid filmmaking choice. 
 
 McQueen, who made 2011's Shame,creates one of the most graphic portrayals of slavery ever depicted on screen. A long scene in which Northup dangles from a tree with a noose around his neck, one foot grazing the ground as other slaves work around him, is particularly searing. It also symbolizes the precarious position Northup is in throughout his enslavement. 
 
 Tricked by a couple of hustlers into leaving his New York home, Northup believes he is going to Washington, D.C., to perform in a concert. He wakes up in chains in a dank cellar, the papers proving his status as a free man stolen. Soon, he's transported to the deep South, with a falsified identity branding him as a runaway slave from Georgia. Sent to Louisiana, he toils for three different slave owners. 
 
 Northup doesn't endure his sudden hardship without forging essential human connections, notably with Eliza (Adepero Oduye), whose young children are brutally taken from her, and Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o), the industrious young worker repeatedly raped and beaten by a slave owner. 
 
 Northup can't reveal his ability to read or write for fear that he'll incite the ire of the ignorant folks he works for. But his background as a craftsman draws the admiration of a slightly more humane slave owner, William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), who protects him from a murderous overseer (Paul Dano). 
 
 Northup's non-servile ways also incur the wrath of Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), a particularly vicious and deranged slave owner and his sadistic, jealous wife (Sarah Paulson). 
 
 Born in the Adirondack Mountains, Northup is determined to survive in his new surroundings, steeling himself as others around him grow dead-eyed, weep disconsolately or resort to suicide. 
 
 Over the long years his determination to return to his wife and children in New York keeps him going. He won't give in to hopelessness. But the audience despairs for him after he makes a few failed attempts to get word to his family. 
 
 A chance meeting with Canadian abolitionist Samuel Bass (Brad Pitt) changes Northup's life. 
 
 Just as Northup's 1853 memoir shrewdly exposed a detailed view of slavery to the American public, McQueen's film offers contemporary audiences a meticulous and haunting look at this terrible chapter in American history. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1aSO4Uc ||||| Enlarge Image From left, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Fox Searchlight 
 
 Movie audiences have never been presented with anything quite like the intertwined beauty and savagery of "12 Years a Slave," so it's anyone's guess whether they'll extend the embrace that Steve McQueen's film deserves. Such is the power of this landmark event, though, that it seems certain to transcend the movie realm and become a new reference point in contemporary culture—a defining vision of what slavery looked like, and felt like, in the U.S. before the Civil War. 
 
 It's a sun-scorched vision of hell that puts Hieronymus Bosch in the shade. At the same time—and here's the genius of the production, and of John Ridley's script—it's a thrilling tale of survival, based on a celebrated 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup. A free black man living happily and prosperously with his wife and children in Saratoga, N.Y., Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is pulled into a nightmare world when he is abducted by bounty hunters in 1841, then shipped off to a plantation in Louisiana as a slave in shackles and chains. 
 
 Movie audiences have never seen anything like the intertwined beauty and savagery of "12 Years a Slave," which could make or break the movie. WSJ Film Critic Joe Morgenstern offers his take. Photo: Fox Searchlight. 
 
 At first the educated, sweet-spirited victim doesn't realize what's happening to him, but he's brought all too quickly to understand the ruthlessness of slave traders who treat the men, women and children they sell as talking livestock—"My sentimentality," says a pitiless trader played by Paul Giamatti, "extends the length of a coin"—and the inhumanity of plantation owners who buy them. "There is no sin," says one owner, Edwin Epps, a lust-addled, Scripture-quoting brute played by Michael Fassbender. "A man does how he pleases with his property." 
 
 Like its source material, "12 Years a Slave" is a polemic, and a furious one. How could it not be, given the physical horror and moral squalor of the society it explores? Solomon's agonies—the lashings, the capricious beatings—are barely endurable for him, and a test of our willingness to bear witness, even though it's hard to turn away from the astonishing range and impassioned conviction of Mr. Ejiofor's portrayal. A slave named Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o, in another of the film's brilliant performances) endures even more terrible punishment at the hands of Epps, whose tortured sexuality leads him to rape her ritually, and to have her whipped until the flesh falls from her back. 
 
 The polemic is also a work of art. Mr. McQueen was a visual artist before he became a filmmaker, and he and his cinematographer, Sean Bobbitt, give us a succession of images that seem discovered rather than devised. (In one extended, excruciating sequence that I'll describe obliquely, so as not to diminish its impact, Solomon touches his toes to a patch of mud like a dancer performing a life-or-death gavotte.) The artistry extends to the heightened, almost literary language spoken by the slaves among themselves, and occasionally to their masters; it's a choice that could have fallen into affectation but serves to honor inchoate feelings that might otherwise have gone unexpressed. Yet Mr. Ridley's exemplary script gives everyone his intricate due. The white men and women who inhabit the film aren't all undifferentiated monsters—one can imagine them being tender with their children and generous to their friends—and those of them who perpetrate the most flagrant evil are anything but banal. 
 
 Mr. Fassbender shines, however malignantly, as the worst villain of the bunch. Epps is the lethally serious counterpart of the jovial monster played by Christoph Waltz in "Django Unchained," and one more reminder that villainy in drama is its own reward. Benedict Cumberbatch is Ford, a plantation owner with a paternalistic bent; he recognizes Solomon's intellectual and musical gifts and treats him reasonably well, but still sees him as a valuable piece of property. Paul Dano's overseer, Tibeats, is terrifying for his invincible stupidity. 
 
 Watch a clip from the film "12 Years a Slave." Actor Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York in the antebellum United States, who is abducted and sold into slavery. (Photo/Video: Fox Searchlight Pictures) 
 
 As an emblem of plantation society's contradictions, Alfre Woodard's Mistress Shaw is serenely, almost surreally charming; a black woman and former slave, she is married to a white plantation owner. Brad Pitt's Bass is the antithesis of evil, a Canadian abolitionist who may be the least convincing character in the film because he shows up out of nowhere and delivers the script's only lapse into didacticism. That's easy to forgive on three counts, though: Mr. Pitt is perfectly fine in the role; as one of the producers, he was instrumental in getting "12 Years a Slave" to the screen; and the abolitionist's message of equality is a worthy one. "Your story is amazing," Bass tells Solomon gravely, "and in no way good." The film is amazing, and in every way good. 
 
 'All Is Lost' 
 
 This is one of those films you either buy into right away or dismiss as a stunt. I bought in—much to my surprise, since it promised to be a stunt—and far from feeling any remorse, I grew more invested as the going got rough. 
 
 Watch a clip from the J.C. Chandor film "All Is Lost." After a collision with a shipping container at sea, a resourceful sailor (Robert Redford) finds himself staring his mortality in the face. (Photo: Daniel Daza, Video: Roadside Attractions) 
 
 The going gets exceedingly rough in J.C. Chandor's existential thriller, with Robert Redford as a solo sailor struggling to survive in the vastness of the Indian Ocean after his yacht collides with an errant shipping container. That's the cast, that's the plot: No back story for the unnamed yachtsman; no dialogue, apart from a brief and affecting preface plus a very few words en route; no tiger, no mystical or religious subtext. The only thing we know the sailor believes in is celestial navigation, which he uses, after the failure of his boat's electronics, in an effort to maneuver into shipping lanes where he stands a chance of being rescued. 
 
 Enlarge Image Robert Redford in 'All Is Lost' Roadside Attractions 
 
 What engaged my interest at first was the staging of the collision: no setup, no drama, just a bang in the night and a gouge in the fiberglass hull that presages disaster. But "All Is Lost" amps up as its hero's options dwindle. It's a meditation on mortality, with remarkable resemblances to "Gravity," not to mention echoes of "The Old Man and the Sea." It's admirably crafted, with a wealth of detail that illustrates the sailor's resourcefulness. (Credit for the cinematography is shared by Frank G. DeMarco, who worked above the water line, and Peter Zuccarini, who shot the underwater sequences.) "All Is Lost" is also a showcase for an understated yet mesmerizing performance. You can't help seeing Mr. Redford as the star he has been over so many decades. At the very same time, though, you see him as the sailor, suddenly vulnerable yet ferociously determined to live. 
 
 The actor has become vulnerable too. At 77, he looks more or less his age. He has the rugged face of someone who has spent too much time in the sun. His golden hair has lost its backlighted glow. Yet Mr. Redford gives his character a formidable physicality. He is said to have done almost all his own stunts, and clearly enhanced his performance in the process. As bruised and battered as the sailor becomes, he is youthened by the struggle he's unlikely to win. It's all strangely but genuinely stirring. 
 
 'The Fifth Estate' 
 
 Daniel Brühl, left, and Benedict Cumberbatch DreamWorks 
 
 Benedict Cumberbatch is Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, in a tale of the digital age that scores a dubious analog triumph. Mr. Cumberbatch brings an intriguingly creepy ambiguity to the role, but the style of the film, directed by Bill Condon, is analogous to its subject: torrents of inscrutable info about a man whose self-appointed mission has been distributing torrents of hitherto-secret data. 
 
 Watch a clip from the film "The Fifth Estate," based on real events that reveals the quest to expose deceptions and corruptions of power that turned an internet upstart into the century's most fiercely debated organization. (Photo/Video: Dreamworks) 
 
 The title refers to an emerging paradigm that differs from that of the traditional Fourth Estate. Now a single person with a computer and Internet access can be his or her own editor-publisher on a global scale. Mr. Assange is a prominent exemplar of this new journalism, or whatever one chooses to call it, and of its perils; an Australian citizen, he's currently holed up in London in the Ecuadorian Embassy, which has granted him political asylum. But Josh Singer's diffuse script, based on one book by Daniel Domscheit-Berg and another book by David Leigh and Luke Harding, chooses to avoid any judgment of its hero's conduct, and omits any political or ethical context in which he might be placed. Instead, "The Fifth Estate" gives us an obsessive-compulsive messiah with a taste for martyrdom, and full-screen cascades of computer code in place of a coherent plot. Exhausting in a new way, the movie is a data dump devoid of drama. 
 
 Rewind 
 
 DVD // Streaming // Download 
 
 'Dirty Pretty Things' (2002) 
 
 Chiwetel Ejiofor is Okwe, an African immigrant working nights as a London hotel desk clerk while hiding from the immigration police. Audrey Tautou's Senay, a Muslim beauty from Turkey, is an immigrant in hiding too. A maid at the hotel, she dreams of living in New York. The movie, directed by Stephen Frears, was conceived as a thriller; the plot turns on illegal passports. Its beauty, though, lies in its stark portrayal of the nightmare despair of aliens hunted, on edge, and prepared to risk all for a new start. 
 
 'Margin Call'(2011) 
 
 J.C. Chandor's impressive debut feature takes place in 2008, in the Manhattan headquarters of an investment bank that bears a more-than-passing resemblance to Lehman Brothers. The story is set in motion when a young risk analyst who used to work as a rocket scientist spots a piece of data on his computer screen, reflects briefly on what he's discovered, then realizes that it's the financial equivalent of the asteroid headed for Earth in "Armageddon." The ensemble cast includes Jeremy Irons, Kevin Spacey, Stanley Tucci, Paul Bettany and Demi Moore. 
 
 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'(2011) 
 
 Benedict Cumberbatch, who is in two of this week's releases, is one of many distinguished actors in the supporting cast of this quietly remarkable production, a feature version of the classic 1979 BBC miniseries. Among them are Colin Firth, John Hurt, Mark Strong, Toby Jones, Ciarán Hinds and Tom Hardy. Gary Oldman stars as John le Carré's master spy George Smiley, who was portrayed on television by Alec Guinness. The film was directed by Tomas Alfredson, the Swedish filmmaker who brought new blood to the vampire genre with "Let the Right One In." 
 
 Write to Joe Morgenstern at joe.morgenstern@wsj.com ||||| Had Steve McQueen not already christened his previous picture thus, “Shame” would have been the perfect one-word title to capture the gut-wrenching impact of his third and most essential feature, “12 Years a Slave.” Based on the true story of free black American Solomon Northup’s kidnapping and imposed bondage from 1841 to 1853, this epic account of an unbreakable soul makes even Scarlett O’Hara’s struggles seem petty by comparison. But will audiences have the stomach for a film that rubs their faces in injustice? As performed by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Northup’s astounding story is too compelling not to connect with American audiences, and important enough to do decent business abroad as well. 
 
 The first thing fans of McQueen’s “Hunger” and “Shame” will notice here is the degree to which the helmer’s austere formal technique has evolved — to the extent that one would almost swear he’d snuck off and made three or four films in the interim. Composition, sound design and story all cut together beautifully, and yet, there’s no question that “12 Years a Slave” remains an art film, especially as the provocative director forces audiences to confront concepts and scenes that could conceivably transform their worldview. 
 
 If “Django Unchained” opened the door, then “12 Years a Slave” goes barreling through it, tackling its subject with utmost seriousness. The film opens in a world where slavery is a fact of life and Northup has no recourse to challenge his captivity. Duped and drugged on a bogus job interview, he awakens in shackles and is beaten ferociously when he dares to assert his status as a free man. Some may wonder why he doesn’t continue to protest, forgetting that the word of a black man in pre-Civil War America had almost no legal currency, especially if said individual was unable to produce his free papers. 
 
 Assuming Northup wants to survive, a fellow hostage advises, he must do and say as little as possible, in addition to hiding his ability to read and write. “I don’t want to survive,” Northup bellows. “I want to live!” Separated from his wife and children, he faces a situation where the entire society is stacked against him. While not every white person in the film is evil, they willingly participate in a system that demeans their fellow man, and the injustice is too great simply to forget and move on (as Hollywood and society would evidently prefer). 
 
 Alarmingly, the few films of the past century to engage directly with the institution of slavery have nearly all come from the exploitation sphere, fetishizing aspects of violence and sexual abuse that McQueen endeavors to cast in a different light. An early scene in which slave trader Theophilus Freeman (Paul Giamatti) prods naked slaves for the benefit of prospective buyers offers an alarming yet in-no-way-arousing corrective to an equivalent sequence in the tasteless 1971 mock-doc “Goodbye Uncle Tom,” which lingers on the nudity and degradation of such a market. There’s little ambiguity in these unflattering depictions, though neither is there opportunity for audiences to misconstrue them as erotic. 
 
 To simplify Northup’s memoir, John Ridley’s script lets the character — stripped even of his identity as he is redubbed Platt Hamilton en route to market — change hands just three times over the course of the film. Two of those owners, played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Bryan Batt, are as decent as the circumstances permit, even going so far as to encourage the fiddle playing with which he previously earned his living in upstate New York. The third, Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), becomes the bane of Northup’s existence — a man who justifies his actions according to scripture and prides himself in “breaking” disobedient slaves. 
 
 On Epps’ plantation, “Platt” is expected to pick 200 pounds of cotton each day and is savagely beaten every time he falls short. For sheer productivity, none of the slaves comes close to Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o), a soft-spoken beauty of whom Epps is especially fond, much to the consternation of his severe wife (Sarah Paulson). This jealous big-house matriarch is a familiar character among such exploitation movies as “Mandingo,” constantly jealous that her husband prefers the favors of a slave, and yet Paulson dodges the caricature, even when throwing a heavy crystal decanter in Patsey’s face or urging her husband to beat the life out of her. 
 
 Such cruelty is commonplace in the film’s first two hours, and though audiences might not pick up on the technique, McQueen applies the same unflinching approach to these moments that he used in “Hunger” and “Shame”: long uninterrupted takes that force us to absorb the full impact of human mistreatment, as when Northup survives a lynching attempt, only to dangle from a noose for several minutes while his fellow slaves move about in the background, too nervous to cut him down. This scene also perfectly illustrates McQueen’s knack for letting the characters’ behavior inform the sociology of the situation, rather than explaining things overtly through dialogue. 
 
 Though arguably too harsh for young eyes, “12 Years a Slave” will serve as an important teaching tool, giving audiences who’ve never witnessed the dynamics of slavery an impression of how the system worked. As in Northup’s near-hanging, we see that even though slaves far outnumbered their white masters, harsh discipline could serve to discourage organization by playing upon their survival instincts. Few scenes this year could be more depressing than Patsey begging Northup to end her suffering, unless you count the one in which Epps forces him to beat her nearly to death — an exchange heightened by the way McQueen constructs the sequence within a single 10-minute shot, as the agitated camera circles her abuse. 
 
 Actors like Nyong’o don’t come along often, and she’s a stunning discovery amidst an ensemble that carves out room for proven talents such as Paul Dano, Alfre Woodard and Brad Pitt to shine. Though the film brims with memorable characters, the show ultimately belongs to Ejiofor, who upholds the character’s dignity throughout. McQueen shrewdly limits everything audiences see and feel to the sphere of Northup’s direct experience, drawing us into his head and keeping us there by including occasional shots in which this hyper-intelligent individual (in many ways the superior of his captors) struggles to make sense of his station. 
 
 When it comes time to bestow awards, voters tend to prefer characters who suffer to those who abuse, and yet, this actorly transformation may be Fassbender’s most courageous yet, tapping into a place of righteous superiority that reminds just how scary such racism can be. In many respects, “12 Years a Slave” works like a horror movie, beginning with a “Saw”-style abduction and proceeding through subsequent circles of hell, the tension amplified by a score that blends chain-gang clanging with those same foghorn blasts Hans Zimmer used in “Inception.” As captured by cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, however, a rare beauty suffuses even the most infernal situations. 
 
 This radiant aesthetic, coupled with the rousing use of spiritual songs, provide a beacon of optimism amidst so much hate, once again proving cinema’s place as the ultimate human-rights medium. It’s a shame that such injustice was allowed to exist for so long — 12 years for Northup and nearly 250 for those less fortunate — and an even bigger disgrace that it takes a British director to stare the issue in its face. ||||| When a director who never ever blinks takes on a horrific subject, a nightmare in broad daylight is the inevitable result. Welcome, if that is the right word, to the world of "12 Years a Slave." 
 
 Based on an 1853 memoir detailing the appalling experiences of Solomon Northup, a free man of color who was brazenly abducted and sold into slavery, this film intends to do more than tell us a story. It wants to immerse us in an experience, and it does. 
 
 Obviously, no film can re-create the unspeakable degradation of one human being owning another, but in making the attempt "12 Years" insists we feel things in a particularly oppressive way. This is impressive filmmaking, but it is not easy to take in. 
 
 PHOTOS: Scenes from '12 Years a Slave' 
 
 British director Steve McQueen, working from a screenplay by John Ridley, has no intention of making audiences the slightest bit comfortable with this terrible story, no interest in putting in any special pleading to bend our hearts. 
 
 A former video artist who won Britain's prestigious Turner Prize for artists under 50, McQueen wants us to experience these horrors as intensely as he does, as intensely, if it comes to that, as Northup did himself. 
 
 Viewers of McQueen's previous films will not be surprised by any of this, by the unflinching way, for instance, it depicts the details of savage whippings the slaves endure. Both "Hunger," about the grueling hunger strike of the IRA's Bobby Sands, and "Shame" about the pain of sexual addiction, share this film's implacable style. 
 
 All three of McQueen's works also share a second element, the irreplaceable acting of Michael Fassbender, who made a huge impact as the star of "Hunger" and has formed a powerful aesthetic bond with his director at least as tight and productive as the celebrated link between Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. 
 
 WATCH: Envelope Screening Series — '12 Years a Slave' 
 
 Before we get to Fassbender, however, "12 Years" introduces another exceptional actor, Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays Northup. Impressive in films such as "Dirty Pretty Things" and "Children of Men," Ejiofor is a supple actor whose subtle work conveys the mind-bending notion of a man born free but hijacked into slavery, a man who finds the keystones of his identity ripped away from him, possibly never to return. 
 
 Because the arc of Northup's nightmare is revealed in the title of both the film and the memoir, it is a special challenge for "12 Years" to involve us in specific ups and downs given that we know how it all ends. 
 
 Potent performances across the board make that happen. Whether it's established folks like Ejiofor, Fassbender and producer Brad Pitt (in a key cameo that helped get the film made) or relatively new faces such as Lupita Nyong'o and Adepero Oduye, everyone fits smoothly into the deliberate pace of McQueen's measured and solemn direction. 
 
 Though Northup's memoir is strictly chronological, Ridley's screenplay shrewdly starts us in the middle of the story, with Northup well into his new identity as Platt the slave deep in the bayous of Louisiana. At night he shares a moment of desperation with a female slave that offers a kind of relief but ends only in increased despair. 
 
 PHOTOS: Movie Sneaks 2013 
 
 Once "12 Years" has shown us this vignette, it is doubly shocking to flash back to Platt's life when he was Northup, a free man in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., with a wife and two children and an apparently steady source of income as a fiddler. "Stay safe," his wife says as she heads off to a multi-week job as a cook. They are the last words of hers he will hear for quite awhile. 
 
 A chance meeting with a pair of seemingly upstanding white men who offer him the chance of employment leads to a trip to Washington, D.C., which ends with Northup being drugged and awakening chained in a slave pen, with no one to appeal to and savage beatings assured every time he insists he is not a runaway. This is the classic "wrong man" theme raised to an unendurable level. 
 
 Except Northup, now renamed Platt, has no choice but to endure it. Especially disturbing is the casual but complete dehumanization he finds being a slave means, with slave trader Freeman (an excellent Paul Giamatti) offering him and others for sale with a casual "what catches your fancy, inspect at your leisure." 
 
 Platt's first master, William Ford (the ever-present Benedict Cumberbatch), is relatively enlightened by slave owner standards, but even he can only do so much when Platt gets into a bitter dispute with a thoroughly racist overseer (an adept Paul Dano). No one inside the system can escape its corruption and its power. 
 
 Edwin Epps, Platt's next owner, is altogether different. A notorious and psychotic slave breaker, Epps, superbly acted by the fearless Fassbender, is the absolute ruler of a disturbing alternate universe of his own devising, one characterized by his alternating passion for and disgust with the slave Patsy (Nyong'o), his sexual chattel as well as the best field hand on his plantation. 
 
 Effectively shot by McQueen's longtime cinematographer Sean Bobbitt on several real Louisiana plantations, "12 Years" explores a number of odd corners of the slavery situation, like the slave Mistress Shaw (Alfre Woodard) who is married to the plantation owner and serves an elaborate tea on Sunday mornings. 
 
 Though he insists to himself "I will not fall into despair," this proves increasingly difficult for Platt as the unimaginable things he has to do to survive mount almost beyond understanding. Uncompromising to the end, "12 Years" insists on saying to us, this was how it was, deal with it. 
 
 --------------------------------- 
 
 '12 Years a Slave' 
 
 MPAA rating: R for violence/cruelty, some nudity and brief sexuality 
 
 Running time: 2 hours, 14 minutes 
 
 Playing: At ArcLight, Hollywood; Cinemark, Baldwin Hills; Landmark, West Los Angeles 
 
 kenneth.turan@latimes.com
– Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave is winning widespread praise for its unflinching—and brilliantly acted—portrayal of the horrors of slavery. The film, adapted from Solomon Northup's 1853 memoir, tells the story of a free man tricked into enslavement on a Louisiana plantation. "Movie audiences have never been presented with anything quite like the intertwined beauty and savagery of 12 Years a Slave," writes Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal. "It seems certain to transcend the movie realm and become a new reference point in contemporary culture—a defining vision of what slavery looked like, and felt like, in the US before the Civil War." The film is "a nightmare in broad daylight," writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. "Obviously, no film can re-create the unspeakable degradation of one human being owning another, but in making the attempt, 12 Years insists we feel things in a particularly oppressive way. This is impressive filmmaking." It's "a mesmerizing period drama for the ages." Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor—whose "performance must certainly figure into the Oscar running"—as Solomon and Michael Fassbender as slaveowner Edwin Epps, alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, and Lupita Nyong'o, the movie boasts "probably the finest cast of any film this year," writes Claudia Puig in USA Today. "In many respects, 12 Years a Slave works like a horror movie," though one infused with a "radiant aesthetic," observes Peter DeBruge in Variety. Audiences are forced to "confront concepts and scenes that could conceivably transform their worldview."