OSCARS 2021: Time (2020)

It seems themes of social injustice and racial intolerance has bled into every category at the Oscars this year. This is the America condition, now and forever but right now especially. Unsurprisingly, the documentary genre – which has always veered toward investigative journalism and important issues – is especially concerned with tackling this. “Time” is only the most prominent of this year's crop of nominated docs, to focus on the idea of being black in America. It's a blisteringly personal look at the inherent unfairness of the prison system here in this country.

When they were in their twenties, Sibil Fox Richardson and her husband, Rob, attempted to open a clothing store. When financier pulled out at the last minute, they turned to desperate measures: Robbing a local bank. Both were caught soon afterwards. Sibil was sentenced to, and served, three and a half years in prison. Rob, meanwhile, was sentenced to sixty years in prison. Left to raise their children together, Sibil has spent the last twenty-one years fighting for her husband's release and becoming an activist for prison reform. 

“Time” was originally conceived as a short film. Director Garrett Bradley, who has previously made short documentaries for the New York Times, chose Sibil and Rob as subjects for his next short. That's when Richardson presented him with a large collection of tapes she had made for Rob, spanning back to the nineties, containing hundreds of hours worth of home movies. This footage would cause “Time” to expand to feature length. Yet director Bradley still had the challenge of whittling all this footage down to a manageable length. Perhaps he did too good of a job with that. “Time” only runs 81 minutes. In order to best utilize the surplus of home videos, and to give us a sense of the passing years, Bradley dips in and out of the older tapes. “Time” takes a scattershot approach to its subject, leaping back and forth from the past and the present without warning. This makes it difficult for the viewer to get a grip on events or figure out where they are in the story.

“Time” also presents us, essentially, with two different versions of Sibil Fox Richardson. We see her on-stage, in front of crowds at meetings and events. In these scenes, it is obvious that Sibil is playing a character. She assumes a bigger-than-life personality, proselytizing on her topics like a revival preacher talks about the gospel. It's the kind of performance that catches attention and plays well to a crowd. But it's obviously a performance and that is frustrating. More compelling is the Sibil we get a peek at in the home videos, in the more intimate moments. She's a woman with a clearly strong, determined personality but also dueling with settled-in pains deep inside. I wish we saw more of that Sibil. She seems more genuine, more interesting.

“Time” is most effective when it emphasizes the titular subject. Cutting back and forth between the past and present sometimes emphasizes how much time has passed since Rob has been in prison. We see his sons shift from little boys to teenagers to grown men in the blink of an eye. Yet sometimes, time stretches on in a painfully slow fashion. While Sibil is on-hold with the prison, waiting to hear if her husband will be considered for parole, the film stays still. It focuses on the frustrated faces of everyone present, waiting for an answer. So much time has already passed, so many important moments gone, and Sibil has to waste her time being on hold. It's the film's most subtle moment and it's most powerful. 

With true stories like these, I never know exactly how much to reveal. But, I'll just say that “Time” has a happy ending. The whole documentary is shot in black-and-white, creating a distinctive visual tone for the story to untold. “Time” has been critically praised and seems to be the favorite to win the Oscar. It already has a place assigned it in the Criterion Collection. “Time” is a film that exposes an important topic. Somebody going to hail for sixty years for a robbery that didn't even hurt anyone is absurd. Examining the irrevocable role race plays in sentencing in this country needs discussion. Yet “Time” could convey its points in a clearer fashion, in a way that emphasizes the humanity of its subjects instead of just documenting their cause. [6/10]