Time

Greetings again from the darkness. "Our prison system is nothing more than slavery, and I'm an abolitionist." So states Fox Rich, a successful business woman, and the mother of six boys. Director Garrett Bradley brings us the story of this woman who devoted 20 years to the mission of getting her husband's prison sentence reduced. It was 1997, and the desperate Shreveport couple were arrested for armed bank robbery. Fox took the plea bargain, while husband Rob did not.

Fox served less than 3 years for her involvement in the robbery, while a Louisiana judge sentenced Rob to 60 years (the maximum sentence was 99), with no allowance for parole. Fox was pregnant with twins when Rob was sentenced. She named the twins Freedom and Justus. Director Bradley expertly weaves clips from the home videos Fox recorded for Rob with 'in the moment' discussions and observations of her attempts to get someone in the system to hear the case.

What we witness over the course of the film is a proud, strong, fierce woman who, as a single mother, raises 6 kids while she works - at her job and to get Rob released. Twice per month visits is all that she's allowed with Rob, which leads one of the sons to comment that hiding behind the strong family image is a lot of pain. Fox discusses how her mother taught her to believe in the American Dream, but desperate people do desperate things ... although we never get an explanation of just why Fox and Rob were so desperate to rob a bank. Fox's mother states, "Right don't come to you doing wrong", and then she turns around and compared incarceration to slavery.

There are some mixed messages delivered here, which is understandable given how complicated life can get. Perhaps the most vivid message is the impact incarceration has on a family. Fox is an extraordinary woman devoted to raising her sons as strong and smart young men. But she also decries that her boys have never had a father and don't even know the role one plays. While Fox displays the ultimate in polite phone decorum despite her frustrations with an uncaring, inefficient system, we do see her sincerity as she stands in front of her church congregation asking for forgiveness of her poor choices.

The film was highly acclaimed and talked about at Sundance 2020, and that's likely because it strikes hard at family emotions and societal issues. A prime example is the phone call between Fox and Rob just prior to his re-sentencing hearing. From a filmmaking perspective, the black and white images are terrific, and as previously stated, the home movies and "live" filming are expertly blended. On the downside, the sound mix is horrible at the beginning, and the music (beautiful piano playing) often overpowers the dialogue throughout. It's a film meant to create discussion amongst viewers, and it's sure to do so.

I almost lost hope in this documentary, but that hope was rectified with the final 15 beautiful minutes. However even though the documentary finished strong, as a whole it really failed to grip me!

The overall backbone of the film, was for me the journey that the family experienced whilst growing up without a father. This journey for me was incomplete. As a viewer I wanted to know how the mother created her own narrative and was reborn from the ashes, completely rising up from the total desperation of before she was incarcerated. How the children were effected by this when they were small children to when they were adults. Not just raw footage of a baby and then current video of a graduation. The director showed us the beginning and the end, unfortunately I found no middle ground.

A lot to absorb in this fascinating documentary about a black man sentenced to sixty years for armed robbery and the fight by his wife to get him released after a more reasonable period of incarceration, although twenty years is still pretty hefty all things considered. It's a story centred on the injustice system but at its heart is Fox Rich whose dedication, love and drive to get her husband freed shows a commitment few others could aspire to under these challenging circumstances. Innovatively filmed and presented, the saddest part is that we become increasingly immune to such injustice as it's so often encountered, especially within African American men.

As far as documentaries go, this one is incredibly sparse and shallow. There's not a lot of factual information or real details in it, but there's a lot of cinematic moments that are clearly meant to pull on your heartstrings. I really hoped that instead of building up to emotional moments with their black and white mind blowing cinematography that they had focused on actually telling a better story. It's really not Oscar worthy material, no chance. It's as slow moving as molasses in January and a lot of repetitive close up shots that look like someone shot them on an iPhone pointed at themselves, a lot of insipid moments of waiting on hold or working out at the gym, and really, really boring scenes where almost nothing happens. Let's please raise the bar a little bit.

Tried to find a court case for these characters. I did not. Instead I found an appeal case of a Robert Richardson and a nephew of his wife, both who did not attempt to rob a bank as the movie implies but actually robbed it and were caught later that day. The only mention of a Sybil Fox was during the trial when both Rob and Sybil, presented as his wife, tried to tamper with the jury by visiting their homes and coercing them. Two of them were replaced during the trial for this, and in effect they tried to create a possibility for the trial to be ruled a mistrial when the nephew argued he couldn't received a fair trial because of what the two did. Otherwise there was nothing about her being involved in any way. My thought is that she was a placeholder in the story for the nephew, either he did not agree for this part of his life to be publicized or they did not agree on the proceeds for the publications and had to be swapped for a made up character, hence her struggle in the prison system might be fabricated. I can't point it out exactly since the case eludes me but... This is, at best, an artistic adaptation of a real event than an actual documentary of said event. Something like Fargo, but that's it. It's very one sided and misleading, while hiding behind a real event to obtain credibility. On the part of the victimisation, that court document showed a lot of mistakes he did, and the whole focus was on gaming the system in failing the trial. Are the 60 years excessive? Yes! But a victim, he's not, when the had the chance to come clean. Poor life choices will lead to severe punishment and while the punishment in his case seems exaggerated it might serve as a warning about outcomes and personal responsibility in face of clear evidence. Out there there are other cases, far more damaging than his, yet less dramatised and faked. Another striking thing was the changes in names: Sibil Fox, Sybil Fox, Sibil Rich, Sybil Fox Richardson, Rob Rich, Robert Richardson. If it were supposed to be a documentary, it should contain clear identities. This leads me to suspect that they are trying to hide ways for people to arrive at the actual court case and see for themselves what is instead of being told a one-sided story about the prison system. And even regarding this in reality is not the actual issue, since that sentence, the length, the conditions, were part of the justice system (judges and jury) outcome. The issues with the prison system are different and pertain mostly to the kids in this instance. Chances have to be made, abolishing won't be one of them. Overall the mockup-umentary is hard to swallow. Works as an artistic work, but the pushed narrative as being a real event is mostly for the gullible.