Keke Palmer Escapes from Slavery and Accepts Her Inner Pam Grier

The opening title card of writer-director Krystin Ver Linden’s feature film debut “Alice” says, “Inspired by true events,” and it could be argued that these words are more than metaphorically true, even if you don’t know the concept of the film beforehand.

Keke Palmer plays the title role as the heroine. She is an enslaved woman on a Georgia plantation of the 19th century overseen by Paul (Jonny Le Miller). She runs for her life until she comes to a clearing. At that point, her face explodes in shock and dismay and she weeps. “No!”

Ver Linden’s screenplay for “Alice”It is meticulously designed. That is what we flash back to. “No!” of hers to life on the plantation, which is given a poisonously incongruous sort of visual sumptuousness by cinematographer Alex Disenhof (Apple TV+’s “The Mosquito Coast”). We get a view of Paul standing on his porch watching over his captives. It gives us an impression of the density of their field. Instantly, we feel the oppression of the plantation. The moss hanging down from trees looks like tendrils, which are intended to ensnare or trap.

Alice

There is a shot of a graveyard where the dead among Alice’s people have been buried. Ver Linden cuts to a close-up of a dead bug on the ground and then shows us Paul’s foot stepping on it; what makes this shot effective is the crunching sound of the bug’s dead body under that foot. Ver Linden doesn’t linger over the symbolism or underline it. She makes it work and then she moves on.

We are kept on the plantation with Alice for around 36 minutes of the film’s running time, at which point the movie circles back to her crying “No!”Ver Linden plans to show us the reveal after Verlinden runs away. She is aware that Alice needs to be as immersed in the plantation world as possible so that seeing a car drive by on a highway will feel like a relief and shock to her as it does to Alice.

Alice

Alice runs away from the plantation, only to find that it is 1973. She is quickly picked up by Frank (Common), a kind-hearted truck driver who takes her to the hospital to be examined. Alice is taken to the cover of Pam Grier’s proud, brazen face while there. “Jet”Diana Ross and magazine on the cover “Rolling Stone.”Palmer is able to see a beautiful, slow wonder in Alice’s softly spoken words. “Rolling Stone,”As if she’s waking up from a nightmare, and now entering a paradise-like state of mind.

Palmer is a difficult player in “Alice”She is the main character in the movie and must play the role of Alice. Although she may have been tempted to relax in the second half to get some relief, Palmer remains true to Alice’s character as she was in the first part of the film. Someone as brutalized as Alice isn’t going to adapt quickly to freedom, or ever forget the way she has lived.

Ver Linden’s high-concept idea is not commercialized. While she remains true to her goals, Ver Linden, like Palmer, does offer several moments of satisfaction that merit applause. Alice, for example, changes into a more powerful style and emerges with full Afro after being exposed by Angela Davis and Grier. Paul takes Alice to Grier in “Coffy,”Alice immediately understands what movies are about when she comments afterward. “She wasn’t real, was she? But what she believed in, what she stood for was.”

Alice

Ver Linden is trying a lot in her first movie. The only small problem is that she sets up Frank’s character in a way that would seem to call for another scene or two. Common is a strong and compelling character as a wounded revolutionary. Common is so steady and focused that the man Common plays always feels real, even when he’s most needed as a plot device.

A title card at the end of the credits dedicates the movie to African Americans. “remained enslaved” in the 20th century — and that carries a sting, even after Ver Linden has shown us Alice taking direct inspiration from Pam Grier, in her own sorrowful way, in the final sequence of a film that earns its catharsis.

“Alice”March 18th, in US theatres

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