I’ve
been interested in this movie since I first heard about it and decidedly-eager
to see it since Lupita Nyong’o made me tear up in the first featurette I saw
about it. The film has a definite Disney
air about it, but that’s not a bad thing.
It tells its uplifting story beautifully and well.
Phiona
is a young girl living hand-to-mouth in Uganda.
Everyone needs to pitch in to keep the rent paid and food on the table,
so school isn’t an option. However,
while working one day, Phiona and her younger brother stumble upon a
sports/recreation outreach ministry, where an idealistic man named Robert is
teaching children to play chess. Phiona
takes quickly to the game of cerebral strategy, and soon, Robert is scraping
together money for her and her friends to attend competitions at larger and
larger venues. Many of them do far
better than most would expect of “slum children,” but Phiona is in a class all
her own. As her star rises, she worries
that her disadvantaged circumstances will forever hold her back from being
truly great.
One
thing I appreciate about this film is that Robert, like the rest of the main
characters, is Ugandan (I know the movie is based on a true story, so it’s only
reflecting who Robert really is, but still.)
There have been tons of movies about disadvantaged youths bettering
their situations and learning an important skill with the aid of a
compassionate adult, and usually in those films, we see a white adult and young
people of color. Whether we’re talking
about education or sports, it’s a narrative we see over and over – Freedom Writers, MacFarland, U.S.A., Million Dollar Arm, The Blind Side, and Dangerous
Minds are the first names that top into my head, but there are plenty more. It’s refreshing to see this film, in which
the guiding hand encouraging Phiona and showing her her potential is a Black
Ugandan like her, someone similarly born into poverty who worked hard to get
his education.
All the
tropes of this sort of movie are on display, but for the most part, they’re
done well. We see the peaks and valleys
of Phiona’s chess training, the well-to-do people who look down their noses at
her and assume a poor girl from Katwe can’t have any real skill, the elation of
beating those richer and more experienced than her, the self-doubt that comes
from external sources treating her like she has no value, and the determination
to keep fighting to better herself. We
also see an engaging lead in Phiona and a likable gaggle of youngsters in the
form of her chess team, the Pioneers.
While it’s definitely Phiona’s story, I love watching all of them
flourish as they learn chess and go to competitions.
Newcomer
Madina Nalwanga is understated but earnest as Phiona, and David Oyelowo (who played
MLK in Ava DuVernay’s Selma) hits all
the right notes as Robert. But most of
all, I adore Lupita Nyong’o’s beautiful performance as Phiona’s mother Harriet,
a young woman who wants the best for her daughter but who is terrified of
losing Phiona to the allure of a world that Harriet doesn’t understand and
knows she can’t provide. Overall, it’s a
lovely, enjoyable film, but in Nyong’o’s big moments, it transforms into
something really superb.
Warnings
(Very)
veiled sexual references, brief violence, and thematic elements.
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