Time (2020)

 What's taken away is never lost in Garrett Bradley's emotional documentary.

Love stories are a lot different in the movies. Love stories are also a lot different if you're not black in America. But make no mistake about it, Garrett Bradley's 20-year compilation of the Rich family odyssey, is undoubtedly a love story. Through home videos, phone calls, speeches, and camera phone snippets, Bradley puts together the story of one family's fight to bring a man back home.

Robert Richardson is serving a 60-year sentence for an attempted bank robbery. If that seems extreme it's because it is. It was Robert's first offense. What's commendable is that Garrett doesn't shy away from the crime. Both Rob and his wife, Sybill "Fox" Richardson admits to the crime, and both served time because of it. However, Fox accepted a plea deal that would free her in a few years. Robert, possibly due to bad information, did not, and thought he'd be receiving a similar sentence due to it being his first offense. He was not so lucky. 

Through this, Bradley immediately addresses the biggest elephant in the room: Economic poverty. Fox Rich says it best, "Desperate people do desperate things." The stress of living on starvation wages with limited mobility and fewer resources will drive a person to commit heinous acts that can permanently alter a person's life. And that's what happened to the Rich family. A poor decision cost them a lot of time.

But that's not the sole point of this film. The heart of this documentary is Fox's uncompromising fight to free her husband, raise her children, and become an activist (or in her own words, "a modern-day abolitionist") for criminal justice reform. Fox's drive, determination, and will are unrivaled and inspiring to watch. She's relentless in her pursuit to bring her husband home, but what also comes through is her incredible love for him. The kind of love that never wavers, no matter how many years apart, no matter how hard it got, her love for her husband is powerful and can be felt in every statement she makes.

The best part of this film, however, is its editing. This is a story taking place over twenty years told mostly through home videos and old pictures. And it's pieced together so coherently to tell all of these stories effortlessly. We get a full taste of Fox's undying love for her husband, but we also see how vicious and callous the prison system truly is to an inmate's family. Through Fox's first-hand account, we see how often her concerns are dismissed, her challenges go ignored, and even her calm, respectful demeanor gets soundly rejected. Through this lens, the film feels especially intimate and personal making it all the more heartbreaking. The pain that the Rich family is going through due to the loss of their patriarch is reflected in everything we see the family experience. Whether it's success or failure, it always feels in some way tied to this weight bearing down on them that they fiercely want to escape.

It's what makes the redemptive arc of this film so incredibly moving. After twenty long years, Rob Rich finally comes home. He's welcomed by his wife. They make love and it's as if they've been together this whole time. Suddenly the memories we've witnessed this whole time are shared between them. Their love is a genuine one. It's aspirational, deeply felt, raw, and heartbreakingly real. Finally, Rob gets to spend some time with his now-grown children, and although there's still some pain there, the love is genuinely overwhelming. 

"...but before he created the family, he created what I believe to be the most powerful force in the universe, and that is when he created love. If it could be an acronym, it would be Life's Only Valid Expression." -Rob Rich