Time

This documentary is missing something. To me it seems empty. Had it not been for all of the recorded footage by Fox then there would have been no substance at all. I can agree that her husband was given too much time for the crime but....The documentary itself isn't deserving of the high rating others have given it.

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.

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.

As "Time" (2020 release; 81 min.) opens, Sybil Fox Richardson is talking directly into her smart phone camera: "Today is July 23. My husband is in jail" and she shows off her highly pregnant belly. Born in 1971, she met her husband at age 16, and they eventually start a hip hop clothing store in Shreveport, LA. Then in the late 1990s things go wrong, very wrong, and her husband is sentenced to 60 years in jail... At this point we are less than 10 min. Into the film...

Couple of comments: this is the latest from director Garrett Bradley, who has done a variety of prior short documentary and TV work before. Here she takes a closer look at the travails of a women who is is trying to get her husband released from jail (which she terms "nothing less than slavery"), while raising six boys. The film itself is presented as a mixture smart phone footage and regular camera work, but all of it being brought in B&W footage only. The film also jumps back and forth in time over the last 2 decades. In the end it brings an intimate look at one woman's battle for justice reform. "I will be the voice for the voiceless!", she thunders at one of her public lectures. The movie gets better as it plays out, among other reasons because you really buy into the social plight of this woman and her family. In addition to the remarkable photography, the movie also sports an amazing score, much of it solo piano.

The movie had a very short and limited theater run last Fall, and sadly I had missed it then. I recently caught it on Amazon Prime. In fact, i watched this the very evening of the 2021 Oscars ceremony, where it was nominated for Best Documentary Oscar. Alas, it didn't win (that Oscar went to "My Octopus Teacher"). Regardless, if you have any interest in social justice issues or simply want to see a deeply human story playing out over 2 decades, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

"Time" is an attention getting doc done thru the personal diary like videos of one Fox Rich a Louisiana mom of 6 who's faced almost 20 years without her husband Rob who's still locked up for armed robbery. It preaches faith, hope, and love, at the same time you see Fox's and the kids loss and pain without no husband or dad. Plus it looks at the prison system as being cruel and unkind and the doc promotes and ask that the criminal justice system be more forgiving. Done in black and white this is a focus and feature on human life, family, love, and most of all release and happiness as it's freedom from the system.