Sundance review: Documentary 'Time' shows the toll imprisonment puts on a family

‘Time’

★★★

Playing in the U.S. Documentary competition of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Running time: 81 minutes. (Playing with the 6-minute short “See You Next Time.”)

Screens again: Saturday, noon, Temple (Park City).

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It’s important to understand going into “Time” that director Garrett Bradley does not deliver what one might expect from a documentary that begins with a crime and a trial.

Those elements are mentioned, but not with the just-the-facts approach that hours of true-crime reality TV has trained us to crave. Bradley has a different plan in mind: To show the effect that long-term incarceration has on a family.

When Sybil Fox married Robert Richardson, they dreamed of having children and being successful in business in Shreveport, La. What happened instead is they were involved in an attempted 1997 bank robbery, which landed both of them in prison. Fox Rich (as she’s known) took a plea deal, did a short stretch, got out to raise their sons and reinvent herself as a saleswoman and advocate against unjust incarceration.

A prime example that Rich cites in her motivational talks is her husband’s case. Robert was sentenced to 60 years at Louisiana’s notorious state penitentiary, known commonly as Angola — a former plantation that, Fox Rich argues, is the ground zero for a new system for legalized slave labor.

Bradley follows Fox Rich as she makes the case for Robert’s release to any audience who will listen. But what’s more touching is the footage — both contemporary and from video journals Fox Rich recorded for more than 20 years — that captures the couple’s six sons growing up strong and proud, without their father being around. 

Watching these kids through the years is far more compelling than the usual true-crime fare. “Time” is a reminder that the crime may be the start of the story, but it’s not the whole story.