Thursday, November 24, 2016

Queen of Katwe (2016, PG)

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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