'The Underground Railroad' Is So Good

A review.

Thuso Mbedu and Aaron Pierre in The Underground Railroad. Photo: Amazon.

It has become trendy to talk about the “black body.” It’s the latest buzz phrase of the infographic glitterati, the ones who repost “Defund the Police” and “Abolition Now” on Instagram in soft, palatable pastels. It’s not a caricature but a concept: speaking technically — dispassionately, even — about this black body, instead of this black woman, is supposed to make the wrongs harder to ignore, I guess. Instead, it’s “black bodyminds,” even “bodies of culture.” It’s misguided (read: silly), but ostensibly well-intentioned.

The Underground Railroad, adapted from the Colson Whitehead novel of the same name, slides past any faddish online discourse or buzzwords, any of the “black body” thinking that does in other experienced auteurs. (See: Lovecraft Country.) The Underground Railroad is, instead, the story of a woman. Cora (Thuso Mbedu) is an escaped slave, on the run from the only home she’s ever known, a plantation …