Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), is a musician who, hoping to earn some extra money, accepts an offer from some unscrupulous white men to play for a circus in Washington, D.C. Next thing he knows, he’s penned up, shipped south, and sold into slavery. Stripped of his name and much of his dignity, at the hands of sadistic masters and mistresses in antebellum plantation South, Northup suffers the physical and mental horrors of being considered less than human. And yet he refuses to allow this harrowing situation to completely extinguish his spirit holding onto hope that he would see his wife and children again someday. The terrific cast includes Michael Fassbender and Benedict Cumberbatch as plantation owners, Paul Dano as an overseer, Paul Giamatti as a slave broker, Lupit Nyong’o as a fellow slave, Alfre Woodward as a slave with special privileges, and Brad Pitt as a Canadian abolitionist. |