ALICE provides a new take on American horror
Written and Directed by Krystin Ver Linden
Starring Keke Palmer, Jonny Lee Miller
Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes
In theaters March 18, streaming April 5
by Melissa Strong, Contributor
A historical thriller with roots in real events, Alice is an appealing story of Black female empowerment anchored by Keke Palmer’s performance in the lead role. Solid set design, score, and casting combine with a compelling premise to produce an entertaining film that holds together if you don’t think too hard about the narrative. Alice finds something new in the familiar premise of people liberating themselves from enslavement, and it has some interesting things to say. Written and directed by Krystin Ver Linden, an established screenwriter making her directorial debut, Alice establishes Ver Linden as a filmmaker to watch.
The movie begins with a note about its inspiration in the experiences of Black Americans who remained enslaved following the Emancipation Proclamation. For example, isolation and lies kept people like Mae Miller, whom Ver Linden has cited as an influence, living in bondage or near-bondage well into the twentieth century. In the 1960s, Miller learned the truth, freed herself, and got a college education. This is either shocking or sadly predictable, depending on your perspective on America’s past and present. Based on promotional images for Alice, and the amount of Octavia E. Butler I have read, I anticipated elements of time travel. Instead, Alice reminds us that the past and all its horrors are alive in the present.
Welcome elements of mystery leaven a grim first act seemingly set on an antebellum plantation, where some people work in the fields and others wait upon a white family headed by Paul Bennett (Jonny Lee Miller). Life is pretty terrible for everyone but Mr. Bennett, and especially for Alice (Palmer), who must endure regular verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. Bennett’s plans to force Alice’s beloved into sexual servitude at a neighbor’s – slave traders and owners commonly compelled enslaved men to copulate with enslaved women until they became pregnant – incite secret talk of escape, as well as the story of a long-ago surprise visitor who came from the sky and carried fire in his hand.
The truth proves more shocking than supernatural when Alice successfully liberates herself from the Bennett plantation. Alice becomes a fish-out-of-water story as its heroine runs through the trees and onto a… [spoiler alert] highway, paved and complete with electric lights, cars, and trucks. She teams up with Frank (Common, who looks and sounds great but can’t hold a candle to Palmer’s acting), and in no time Alice is learning how lighters work, eating baloney sandwiches, discovering Diana Ross and Angela Davis, and wearing platform shoes. For it is the 1970s, not the 1860s, and Mr. Bennett is a sick, racist liar.
The viewer’s education parallels Alice’s as she immerses herself in both American history and radical Black politics. Conveniently, Alice is literate, and Frank is a former Black Panther with tons of books and boxes of memorabilia she can read to get up to date. As she does, the film reminds the audience that the Black Power movement shaped our present world for the better. Alice characterizes racism and slavery as lies people like Bennett tell to feel important. And it stands out from the many other films with similar premises through its approach to justice. Rather than turning to violence, most problems get solved with books, reading, public transportation, teamwork, and conversation. How refreshing.
While the third act takes Alice back to the Bennett homestead to liberate the others and face off against her former master, an earlier scene in a diner offers a more powerful resolution. The conversation between Alice and Mrs. Bennett (Alicia Witt), who left the plantation to live a twentieth-century life, is more intellectually and emotionally satisfying than Alice’s subsequent Pam Grier-style takedown of Mr. Bennett. Mrs. Bennett’s character is the more developed, though, despite considerably less screentime. While Miller is convincing as a greasy, white supremacist psychopath, Alice never explains Bennett’s motives or how he and his family managed to live in the Land of Pre-Emancipation Proclamation Make Believe for over 100 years.
Despite its shortcomings, Alice is an entertaining take on a familiar narrative. Original enough to be interesting, it has something to say. That something is worth hearing right now.