Time

This movie feels, wrong? It casually avoids delving deeper into the case that determined the couple’s fate in the first place, like sweeping dust under one’s carpet, making Rich’s fight for her husband’s early release feel less like a sincere call for change and more like a decades long act of repentance for wrongdoings committed in the past and the effect those acts have had on her family life. But you should feel sorry for them because there’s a piano soundtrack playing in the background.

I rarely grasped a genuine emotion out of any participant. So much feels performative, overwhelmed by Fox's focus on her husband in every moment, leaving her kids possibly stunted and lacking a clear voice or presence. Some scenes and speeches seem scripted, and various film techniques are oddly used, like slow-mo, reverse, staring, nature shots, random unexplained moments, and the tacked-on B&W. The vision was there but the execution didn't feel right.

I wish the beautiful montages that open and close the film were connected by something more substantive. The film overlooks the details of the case, some of which are less than flattering to the main couple. I'd rather the film be honest there, and from that argue for a reduced sentence. I can't be sure whether or not Sibil elides these details in the story, but the film certainly presents her as doing that. That elision takes a big chunk out of what should be a weighty film.

I had a hard time buying that this couple would commit the crime. With this component missing, the film feels less a portrait and more an essay about theme. A beautifully composed essay, but lacking.

A harrowing look at a family with an incarcerated father, and the love that ties them together and the hope that keeps them chugging along - and that's enough for me. There are some slightly heavy-handed filmmaking choices that underestimate the naked potency of the people and circumstances on display, and the ultimate arrival-point seems to come out of nowhere. Reservations aside, it's a poignant work of endearing heart and, at times, painful intimacy.

Very impressive job to cut all that footage into such a coherent, concise and emotional movie.

Effective audiovisuals are wasted on what I worry might be not much more than a performative exercise in narcissism. It has nothing to say that reaches even the midwit level of discourse. That being said, I wish them nothing but the best.

Maybe a bit too short given its multiple purposes -- being as inspirational as emotional, as lovely as angry -- but certainly powerful in the way it depicts mass incarceration in such a personal, deeply felt, diary-like, kind of homemade, family way. Finale is just something else.

500 Characters is not enough to have a discussion of this movie so I'll actually use as little as possible. Prison incarceration system and its inherit racial bias? BAD. Movie's Editing? GOOD. Movie focusing on being a vehicle for Fox Rich public speaking platform and casting aside both the case and the effect it had on her children from a firsthand account and instead all coming from Fox Rich? BAD, Musical Score? GOOD.

It's a solid doc but it should have received an Oscar-nomination for editing instead.

A fascinating collection of vignettes, including a lot of home video footage, depicting the experience of a family whose father has spent the last 20 years incarcerated. Very personal, and all the better for it.

This felt like a short film. Everything about it felt so seamless, but i somehow wanted more old footage. I know that's a crass thing to say about a documentary, to ask for more old miniDV footage from the late 90s/early 2000s.

An amazing portrayal of anger and authenticity.

And enter the most impressive editing of the year. Time is a wonder its ability to weave a simple and important story through two decades in just 81 minutes. The blaring orchestral score behind the hours and hours of video footage paints a tragic and hopeful picture of the family torn apart by the modern slavery that is mandatory minimum sentencing.