There are many reasons to see Harriet, the new biopic about the escaped slave-turned-abolitionist Harriet Tubman. One reason, though, is to enjoy a refresher course on the power of the movie star.
Throughout its 125 minute runtime, Harriet is engaging, suspenseful, and rousing, and it still would have been all those things without Cynthia Erivo in the title role. Without her, though, Harriet would have also felt more like a television movie than something worthy of a theatrical release.
Erivo is nothing short of spectacular. She portrays Tubman with total conviction, in such a compelling way, you never once question that this five-foot ball of fury, intelligence, selflessness, courage, savvy, and righteousness could become the walking folk hero of her time — someone the slaves called “Moses” because God Himself helped her deliver them to freedom.
Born into slavery in 1822, by 1849, after seeing her sister sold off and her owner back out of his agreement to free her family, with the help of the Underground Railroad, Tubman bolts from her plantation in southern Maryland. She can’t read, so maps and signs are useless. She nearly drowns. It’s a hundred miles on foot with determined slave catchers right on her heels. Worst of all, she is all alone. Her husband, a free man, said he’d come with her. But if he’s caught, he will be returned to slavery, so she left him behind.