I actually saw this because of its Oscar nomination for best Documentary Feature but I don't really like it. It's both messy and empty. It feels like it's missing a lot of informations and explanations. And it's chaotic when it comes to character identities. As for the story itself, it seems powerful but if you think well about it, it doesn't fully make sense.

This astonishing documentary, with footage taken over two decades, is essentially a video diary in which Fox Rich fights to have her husband released from prison where he is serving a 60 year sentence for armed robbery but, as the title "Time" attests, it also deals with the time that passes from the opening home movie shots of a young Fox Rich and her family to the present day where we discover that Fox has had a successful life and runs her own business as well as successfully raising a large family. Of course, this hasn't stopped her continuing the fight on her husband's behalf but using her success to her and her husband's best advantage.

It's structured like a fiction film in which every moment is real and it's as gripping as any Michael Mann thriller and it's so magnificently shot, (in black and white by Nisa East, Zac Manuel and Justin Zweifach),and edited, (by Gabriel Rhodes),it almost takes a suspension of disbelief to realise that everything we are seeing is real. This is one of the great documentaries, (the director is Garrett Bradley),mainly because it subverts the documentary genre. This is no 'bleeding hearts' portrait of despair, (Fox and her husband really did carry out the robbery),but the study of a powerful woman doing what she can to fight a system rigged against her.

If this were fiction it would probably be an Oscar-bait vehicle for Viola Davis but you know that no-one, least of all Fox herself, is acting and yet she is giving a performance, performing in the hope that everything she says and does will get her husband Rob paroled and as we follow her on her journey we also follow her sons on theirs. As a study in resilence and what is possible this is amazing and deeply moving. It's a demonstration of what I would call 'pure cinema' where the only dramatic effects come from the material itself; a masterpiece.

Greetings again from the darkness. "Our prison system is nothing more than slavery, and I'm an abolitionist." So states Fox Rich, a successful business woman, and the mother of six boys. Director Garrett Bradley brings us the story of this woman who devoted 20 years to the mission of getting her husband's prison sentence reduced. It was 1997, and the desperate Shreveport couple were arrested for armed bank robbery. Fox took the plea bargain, while husband Rob did not.

Fox served less than 3 years for her involvement in the robbery, while a Louisiana judge sentenced Rob to 60 years (the maximum sentence was 99),with no allowance for parole. Fox was pregnant with twins when Rob was sentenced. She named the twins Freedom and Justus. Director Bradley expertly weaves clips from the home videos Fox recorded for Rob with 'in the moment' discussions and observations of her attempts to get someone in the system to hear the case.

What we witness over the course of the film is a proud, strong, fierce woman who, as a single mother, raises 6 kids while she works - at her job and to get Rob released. Twice per month visits is all that she's allowed with Rob, which leads one of the sons to comment that hiding behind the strong family image is a lot of pain. Fox discusses how her mother taught her to believe in the American Dream, but desperate people do desperate things ... although we never get an explanation of just why Fox and Rob were so desperate to rob a bank. Fox's mother states, "Right don't come to you doing wrong", and then she turns around and compared incarceration to slavery.

There are some mixed messages delivered here, which is understandable given how complicated life can get. Perhaps the most vivid message is the impact incarceration has on a family. Fox is an extraordinary woman devoted to raising her sons as strong and smart young men. But she also decries that her boys have never had a father and don't even know the role one plays. While Fox displays the ultimate in polite phone decorum despite her frustrations with an uncaring, inefficient system, we do see her sincerity as she stands in front of her church congregation asking for forgiveness of her poor choices.

The film was highly acclaimed and talked about at Sundance 2020, and that's likely because it strikes hard at family emotions and societal issues. A prime example is the phone call between Fox and Rob just prior to his re-sentencing hearing. From a filmmaking perspective, the black and white images are terrific, and as previously stated, the home movies and "live" filming are expertly blended. On the downside, the sound mix is horrible at the beginning, and the music (beautiful piano playing) often overpowers the dialogue throughout. It's a film meant to create discussion amongst viewers, and it's sure to do so.