Movie Review - Time (2020)

Garrett Bradley premiered this film at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival where it won the U.S. Documentary Directing Award. Bradley became the first African-American woman to win in this category. Given the critical acclaim, it's possible that this film could be up for many more awards, including a nod at the 93rd Academy Awards. Bradley's film is a very compelling one that follows the life of Sibil Fox Richardson who in 1997 was arrested for robbing a bank. She did so along with her husband, Robert Richardson. Through a series of circumstances that aren't fully explained, Sibil only served a few years for the crime, but her husband Robert or Rob was sentenced to 60 years in Louisiana State Penitentiary. Utilizing over 100 hours of home videos that Sibil had recorded for nearly 20 years of her family and children in order to document their lives for her incarcerated husband to see one day, Bradley constructed this film, which cuts back-and-forth between those home videos and new footage Bradley captures of Sibil working to get her husband out of prison early.

The home videos are presented in black-and-white. It's clear that those videos were shot in standard definition with an aspect ratio of 4:3. It's not clear though if those videos were shot in black-and-white. They might have been colored black-and-white in post-production in order to match the new, black-and-white footage that Bradley films of Sibil and her family, which includes her various sons. It's most compelling to see her sons as toddlers, barely able to speak and stumbling around, and then to see them as practically grown men, expressing themselves so intelligently and confidently, walking tall. It's compelling to see how time has affected them and the path they were put on, most likely as a result of having a father in prison their whole lives.

Throughout, we certainly get a strong sense of who Sibil is as a woman in the wake of this situation. She has become a strong force in terms of being a mother, a woman of faith and a motivational speaker, trying to educate people on what she experienced and inspiring them on doing better. She certainly has inspired her children into criminal justice reform or working in government to change things for black people who have been unfairly treated by the law.

Unfortunately, Bradley's film never really gets into the details deeply of Sibil's case or her husband's case. All we gather is that both she and her husband were charged with the same crime, but she only served a few years, while he got sentenced to 60. That's quite a disparity and the film does nothing to clarify why that happened or what was the legal minutiae that led to it. It's also not explained how exactly her husband is released before his 60 years is up. I suppose that Bradley didn't want to focus on the legal minutiae and just wanted to sweep everyone up in the emotion of a loved one's absence in this way and then his return after so many years and the effect of it.

By the end, Bradley initiates something that reminded me of the recent Christopher Nolan film, Tenet (2020). The final sequence, much like the latter half of Nolan's film involves people moving backwards. Bradley basically reverses the play of the home videos and we watch Sibil's family, particularly her children moving backwards. It might not be as technically impressive as Nolan's spectacle, but it was emotionally more effective in the moment. Unfortunately, without the legal minutiae or just more context, as this film breezes by without much deep diving, the weight of it all just floats away. 

Rated PG-13 for some strong language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 21 mins.

Available on Amazon Prime.