Remarkable actor Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon Northup, who in 1841 is a free man living in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., has a family and is trying to follow a career as a musician when he is tricked into getting seized, being sold into slavery and shipped into the deep South. The film focuses on what slaves had to go through, as they were ripped away from their families, beaten, treated inhumanly and doomed to live with only a remote chance of escaping their bondage.

Northup battles to retain his dignity and courage as he observes what happens to others. At one point, to save his own life, he is compelled to whip a woman with whom he has deeply sympathized. Death is never more than an incident away, as vengeance is wreaked upon any slave who dares challenge an overseer. The years pass as Northup never gives up hope that one day recognition that he has been a free man will come and he will be returned to his family.

Finally it does in the form of a contractor played by Brad Pitt (one of the film’s producers) as a Canadian who condemns slavery. Northup gives him the information to trace those who might take legal action to secure his freedom against the odds due to the slave system’s power.

By then our emotional commitment is passionately with Northup and his hopes, and the film moves melodramatically toward its climax. The strong cast that helps immeasurably includes Alfre Woodard, Michael Fassbender, Paul Giamatti, Benedict Cumberbatch and Lupita Nyong’o.