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| Scene from Harriet (2019) |
There's no biopic that has as much pressure to live up to as director Kasi Lemmons' Harriet. It's likely that those who have been in a history class anytime over the past 100 years will know the achievements of Harriet Tubman, even vaguely. She is a prime figure in the success of The Underground Railroad, and that's just the start to something more exciting and empowering about her story. There's so much ground to cover to the point that it's impossible to fathom why it took until 2019 for Tubman to receive the biopic treatment. Harriet is a film that has to be something for everybody as a result, being neither too salacious for those discovering her story nor too sentimental and false. Where does one possibly go with this material for a first outing? The answer is somewhere safe in the middle, producing a film that is satisfying but lacks any urgency that will revive Tubman's legacy to a new generation.
