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Sundance Review: Keke Palmer & Common In ‘Alice’

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Krystin Ver Linden’s debut movie Alice arrives with the assurance that it is based on true events, one of those vague guarantees that lingers in the back of your mind while the movie unspools and what you think you’re watching turns out to be something very, very different.

Factuality is often a moot point in cinema—with his legendarily terrible 1957 space vampire flick Plan 9 from Outer Space, Ed Wood even tried reverse-psychology, asking viewers, “Can you prove that it didn’t happen?” But with a slick slave drama-slash-revenge thriller it immediately raises questions of taste and decency: is this really the proper vehicle for a meditation on Civil Rights?

Surprisingly, Ver Linden’s film walks that tightrope very well. There are wobbles for sure, but the commitment from her cast keep its intentions pure even when the storytelling falters, which is often.There is no way to discuss Alice properly without revealing the movie’s big twist, which is freely referenced in publicity materials and yet happens a full 37 minutes into its running time.

Until then, Alice is the favored slave on an isolated plantation ruled—literally with an iron rod—by the ruthless Paul Bennet (a good, grizzled performance from Jonny Lee Miller).

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