Oh..... my..... gosh....
This afternoon I went to see the new movie Amazing Grace by Michael Apted, and I can categorically state that it will be nominated for numerous Academy Awards next year. It is a remarkable film. I'm sure no one who saw it left the theater unaffected or under-affected. I saw tears and heard muffled crying in the audience numerous times, but otherwise a silence that was deafening due to the impact of literally every scene...
The movie is about William Wilberforce, a British politician, philanthropist, and abolitionist who was the leader of a decades'-long parliamentary campaign against the slave trade in the late 1700s and early 1800's.
Check him out at wikipedia.
Okay, class, that concludes an abbreviated history of Wilberforce's anti-slavery campaigns as a typically staid history text might tell it. If it didn't exactly captivate you in the above form, trust me: the movie will! The history will be written on your heart, mind and soul. And you will never hear Amazing Grace again without thinking of the redeemed former slaver who wrote it and his protege: the young man Wilberforce, raised up to take on an impossibly difficult, all-but-unwinnable, unpopular cause -- and pursued it to hard-won victory with ceaseless passion and elegance at the cost of his own health and youth.
I wish I had the words to describe it. The critics love it. You will, too.
Please, please, please don't miss this movie. See it in the theater and support a GOOD movie, then buy it when it comes out on DVD to enhance your collection of truly inspiring, unforgettable, noble films.
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