There are many cringe-inducing scenes in 12 Years a Slave, the adaptation of Solomon Northup’s 1853 autobiography about the most common of global injustices: slavery. One eye-flinching moment in particular is when Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is hung by the neck for briefly standing up to — and whipping — a tyrannical master (Paul Dano). Northup’s toes are centimeters from the ground, the noose stiffens around his neck, and while the people who hung him up are run off by the plantation owner’s chief overseer, no one comes to help. The bustle around him increases a few frames later as other slaves start passing by, their heads down, scared of sharing Northup’s fate; the most he gets is a drink of water.

Though Northup is later brought down by his kind, if socially scared owner William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch) later that night, we know that given the circumstances, and the traditions of pre-Civil War America, he needed to be taught a lesson. 12 Years a Slave, thus openly — at times too vividly — talks about a bigger picture; the few options available to colored people of the times: submit and survive or defy and die.

In Northup’s case — who was born as a freeman, was educated, had a wife and kids, a home of his own, and was a professional violinist (he played in several well-known establishments in Saratoga Springs, New York) — the unavailability of options leads to a 12 year-long ordeal. In 1841, Northup was cajoled with a work offer by two men, drugged and sold to slavery, where he was transferred from master to master, until he regained his freedom in 1853.

Northup’s tale is considered an important piece of the American history as it led to laws that helped rescue African-Americans kidnapped and sold as slaves. The screenplay by John Ridley (produced by Brad Pitt who has a good-guy cameo in the last 20 minutes), drives the emotional and physical confinements of slavery into the psyche with the subtlety of a sledgehammer; this treatment, distant and yet firsthand, was at times necessary. The images British director Steve McQueen (Hunger, Shame) frames are unsociable and intermittently antagonistic by purpose, right down to the unsympathetically displayed racial contrast (some of Northup’s solo scenes are filmed in deep black backgrounds, while his owners, who I don’t need to remind are fair-skinned, live in white-washed homes).

We are obviously treated to a condensed version of Northup’s life (the film runs to about 134 minutes) that has Ejiofor locked in almost every frame; however an emotional connection is never instituted. Ejiofor, an actor of soft intensity, is spectacular and subtle. As in any case, he risks being browbeaten and overawed by the actors who play his maleficent proprietors. This lot includes a tidbit by the always engaging Paul Giamatti, Cumberbatch and Michael Fassbender’s drunk, abusive sadist Edwin Epps, who is so fined tuned to the basest of his character’s whims that he at least deserves the Best Supporting Actor nod this year (Sarah Paulson is Edwin’s equally sadistic wife).

In all honesty, 12 Years a Slave is manufactured for the Oscar season (there are high chances of it being the top contender along with Gravity and Captain Phillips), right down to the conspicuousness of its take on Northup’s already dramatic story, and the necessity of telling this story.

Distributed by Fox Searchlight, 12 Years a Slave is rated R.