‘Time’ Review: Time Waits for No One, but Love Does

The best documentary filmmakers know that the strength of their film lies not necessarily in the information that’s being provided to the audience but in the manner in which that information is presented. A marvel of the form like Ezra Edelman’s O.J.: Made in America, works not simply by telling O.J.’s story, much of which many already knew, but in how OJ’s story was contextualized within American history in order to indict not just Simpson, but the American judicial system, and the country itself in equal measure. O.J.’s story (iconic athlete and celebrity turned murder suspect) was fascinating in its own right and had been for over 20 years prior to the film’s release. What Made in America did was go beyond the part of the story that dominated headlines in the mid-90s to paint a much larger picture by using the human at the center of it to reveal much about the place and time in which he existed.

Time, Garrett Bradley’s remarkable documentary, does essentially the inverse. Using America’s criminal justice system as a backdrop, it tells a much more intimate, personal, and unfortunately common story about the toll that system takes on the communities, families, and individuals it affects. At the center of the story is Sibil Fox Richardson, a remarkably charismatic and poised woman whose husband and the father of her six children Robert Richardson has been incarcerated for the past 19 years.

Through home videos we are introduced to the incredibly charismatic and spirited Sibil Fox Richardson whose husband and the father of her six (!) children is incarcerated. Sibil and her children are navigating life without the man of the house, while keeping hope alive that he will soon come home. Sibil’s love for Robert jumps off the screen instantly. It’s the type of love you have for someone when you’re young. It can’t be contained, it floods out of each and every one of your pores. It lives on the surface. For a young woman thrust into an incredibly undesirable and unfortunate situation, she is handling it with incredible aplomb. Her situation cannot dim her youthful energy and temerity.

The film then cuts to the present and we see the Sibil of today, now going by Fox Rich. The transformation is striking. Her once curly black hair is now straightened and streaked with gray. The t-shirts, tank tops, and sweatshirts she once wore are replaced with blazers and button-up blouses. Her speech is more measured. She is a little less bubbly. A little less smiley. She has not grown old, but has certainly matured and weathered. Time has taken its toll. It’s a powerful scene reminiscent of one in 2014’s INTERSTELLAR when two characters return to their ship after an excursion to a planet orbiting a black hole to find that the gravitational time dilation caused by the black hole has caused 23 years of earth time to pass in their absence. On the ship, the lost time shows in their crewmate’s graying beard and softened posture.

Structuring the film this way allows the viewer to engage with Fox first as a person (a smiling, loving dreamer of a person)rather than a victim. We begin by seeing where she came from in order to see how she ended up where she is. Bradley’s film shows that it doesn’t take something as foreign and anomalous as a black hole to rob us of time. Nearly 20 years have passed in between the home videos we’ve seen and the footage from the present day and life has not waited. Save for one, Sibil’s children are now nearly all adults, either in college working. Sibil herself has become an author, prison abolitionist, motivational speaker, and owner of a car dealership. Meanwhile, Robert still sits in prison, serving the 19th of his 60 year sentence. Sibil has spent each of those 19 years fighting for Robert’s release.

We learn that Robert’s sentence stems from a bank robbery he and Sibil committed in 1999. The documentary doesn’t shy away from the fact that the two were indeed guilty of the crime, but by spending time with the Richardson family, it raises the question of whether taking a father away from his family for 60 years is an appropriate punishment for the crime he committed. Fox’s mother, Mahlik Rich, appears throughout the documentary and when discussing her daughter’s circumstances, there is an edge to her speech. She seems almost annoyed that Fox ever found herself in a position to be in this documentary to begin with. She sympathizes with Fox, but does not reserve her judgment, even once stating: “right don’t come to you doing wrong”.

Despite the time with her husband the criminal justice system has stolen from her, Fox has not given up hope in getting him freed. It is in that hope that the movie finds some of its most poignant moments. Numerous calls from Fox to the prison, the judge’s office, or her husband’s lawyers inquiring about updates in the case end with no progress, even when these updates were promised. These moments demonstrate how the most valuable thing a person has (their time) can be casually held in the balance. After one such call, Fox gradually loses her cool — incredibly the only such instance in the film — slamming her fist on the table while discussing her frustration with the judge presiding over Robert’s case. He appears to be in no rush to decide whether a man will be returned to his family, apparently going so far as to tell her lawyer: “all of ’em will be trying to come home if I re-hear one sentence. Then they’ll all be trying to come home”. You almost want to scream at the screen, “yes, exactly!”.

Such an assertion could almost be taken as a merely unintelligent point of view from a lone, uninformed judge were it not so commonplace. These are the things that millions of families have heard from judges all over the country. It’s the type of statement that makes one realize that it’s not that a judge doesn’t realize how heartless such a proclamation could sound, it’s that he doesn’t care. Scenes like these are why the film is being heralded as a particularly incisive and resonant look at mass incarceration, despite not spending very much time discussing it in the macro sense. These systemic issues have personal stakes.

In the end, Time circles back to the beginning. Some of the home video footage shown earlier now plays in reverse. It’s transfixing imagery, but it’s not just a cool editing trick, it’s a reminder that no matter how Fox and Rob’s story, those memories — that time is something they’ll never get back. And, like in INTERSTELLAR, the only thing that transcends time is love.

Time is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.