Time (2020)

This is a documentary about Sibil Richardson’s 20-year battle to get parole for her incarcerated husband. I would say it is about 15-20 minutes longer than it needs to be, but then, there is something about the subject matter and the message that makes whiling away time within the movie somehow appropriate. This is not a film about a black man incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, but rather a black man incarcerated for a ridiculous length of time for the crime he committed. The injustices are many for people of color, and this seeks to humanize that problem. The film has many layers, and the title itself is open to many interpretations: It could stand for the term describing a jail sentence, or the notion that all a prisoner has in a cell is time or, most devastatingly, how the incarcerated person’s life remains in a holding pattern while time carries life’s events forward on the outside. Kids grow up without parents, spouses endure without better halves, and parents grow older without their children bearing witness. Whatever the director’s symbolic intentions for naming the film, this beautiful and haunting documentary reminds us that there’s a human being behind those prison identification numbers, someone who is loved and is missed. The film is lovingly done, and well worth watching.