Common Sense Media Review
By Sandie Angulo Chen , based on child development research. How do we rate?
Powerful, intense doc about wife's fight for her husband.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 14+?
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Time
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
TIME is a documentary about how unfair sentencing, including lack of parole, hurts families. In 1997, Fox and Robert, newly married after a decade and three sons together, lost the primary investors in their small business, a hip-hop-inspired clothing store in Shreveport, Louisiana. Desperate, Fox drove Robert and a nephew to a local bank, where they committed armed robbery (no one was hurt). They were all caught and convicted of armed robbery, and although Fox took a plea deal of 13 years (she was released after 3.5), Robert was sentenced to a staggering 60 years without possibility of parole. After Fox's early release, she spent nearly two decades lobbying for her husband's re-sentencing, amnesty, and release. Director Garrett Bradley weaves in footage of Fox's (as well as her sons') efforts with Fox's personal home video footage.
Is It Any Good?
This is an unforgettable documentary about one woman's fight to have her husband released early from an unfair prison sentence. Fox is painfully honest about the couple's crime; this isn't a film like Just Mercy about a wrongful conviction. What Fox wants people to know is that the same brokenness and systemic racism that led Just Mercy's Walter McMillian to sit on Death Row is responsible for all of the overly harsh sentencing that people of color, particularly Black men, still face in the United States' criminal courts. Fox is an absolutely compelling subject: She's so smart and so fiercely devoted to her husband and their sons, many of whom are in college and graduate school, flying in the face of statistics related to success rates for children of incarcerated adults.
Fox and director Bradley are clearly collaborators in the documentary, with Fox's personal home videos offering a lot to the story. There are a few questions that do go unanswered or unaddressed: How do Fox and Robert have such a young son if Robert has been incarcerated for so long, and what happened to the nephew involved in the robbery? The latter issue is particularly revelant, because there have to be extenuating circumstances related to why Rich isn't advocating for her nephew's early release. It's also somewhat underexplained how Fox ended up with such a relatively short sentence compared to Robert's, even if she was just the getaway driver. Those issues aside, there's so much to appreciate and reflect upon in Time, which will make viewers think not just about the time Robert served but the time he and his family have lost.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how Time portrays incarcerated people and their families. Do you think Fox and Robert's family is unique? Why did Fox succeed when so many others do not?
What did you learn from the film about the justice system's pitfalls? What do you think Fox and her mother mean when they say prison is the new slavery?
How is Fox a role model? Why are compassion, empathy, and perseverance important character strengths?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming: October 16, 2020
- Director: Garrett Bradley
- Inclusion Information: Black directors
- Studio: Amazon Studios
- Genre: Documentary
- Topics: Activism , Friendship
- Character Strengths: Compassion , Empathy , Perseverance
- Run time: 81 minutes
- MPAA rating: PG-13
- MPAA explanation: some strong language
- Last updated: February 19, 2023
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