A United Kingdom

Year: 2016

Genre: Drama

Directed: Amma Asante

Stars: David Oyelowo, Rosamund Pike, Tom Felton, Jack Davenport, Laura Carmichael, Terry Pheto, Jessica Oyelowo, Vusi Kunene, Abena Ayivor, Arnold Oceng, Theo Landey, Jack Lowden

Production: BBC Films

In a word, A United Kingdom is handsome. To loan it another, it’s also stately; handsome and stately, stately and handsome. Both words immediately conjure memories of Enchanted April (1991) or anything adapted from a Jane Austen novel. The kind of movie with people walking down hallways and through courtyards looking flustered. Handsome and stately; But is it important?

Are you telling me there won't be an estate dinner?

Director Amma Asante and screenwriter Guy Hibbert seem to think so, pitting the film’s protagonists against Winston Churchill while evoking memories of no less than Nelson Mandela. Of course it has good reason to; A United Kingdom is not a work of fiction but rather an inspiring true story of an African king and a British subject who chooses to be his queen. The story of Seretse Khama (D. Oyelowo) and the lovely Ruth Williams (Pike) starts like most great romances do, with the intense locking of eyes and a world of obstacles lying in waiting. The two court and marry within the first act and make their way to Bechuanaland (now Botswana) where trouble takes the form of familial tensions and geo-political intrigue. Can their love survive the ever-mounting pressures of the British Crown and neighboring Apartheid period South Africa? Or will the marriage crumble like the infrastructure of what was then the poorest country on Earth.

That very question, the limits of their undying love, forms the nucleus of A United Kingdom, the implications of which wrap the story like pink colored cellophane. The events of the film span a decade and during all that time, what we mostly get is the same sanitized story beats as a Disney Princess movie. Not much in the way of global politics or economics and nothing but what you’d expect as far as period appropriate racism. It’s all done so safely; so demure and limited by superficial pomp.

If you liked A United Kingdom, you may also like Belle!

The irony of course is director Amma Asante seems to really care about these sorts of true-life stories. Her last film Belle (2013), worked within the confines of a stuffy period piece, to call attention to an obscure life at the nexus of racism and aristocracy. But while that movie had the luxury of gifting its audience something new into familiar wrapping, A United Kingdom can’t really break free from its own limitations. We’ve seen this all before the only difference is the specter of Apartheid isn’t personified by a severe man twirling his mustache.

I'm sure he's a nice guy in real life...

The British Empire however is personified in Jack Davenport and Tom Felton. Both play British functionaries whose sole job is to pull our two lovebirds apart, and boy do they ever relish their roles. Jack Davenport specifically is at pinnacle Larry Grey; his debonair smugness is so deliciously Anglo that birds would mistake his upturned nose for a littoral cave. Likewise Felton is the epitome of priggishness, a muscle he has toned and perfected with every Harry Potter (2001-2011) installment. While I’m a little sad that franchise has relegated him to play weaksauce villains for the rest of his life, there’s a consolation in knowing there are worse fates for child actors turned adult.

As for Rosamund Pike and David Oyelowo, they both do splendidly; though is there any doubt that they wouldn’t? Both are gifted actors and both do what is required of them which mostly consist of holding hands and looking like the weight of the world is on their shoulders.

So A United Kingdom may not ultimately be an important movie. Yet its heart is inarguably in the right place. It manages to tell a lovely real-life Cinderella story with accomplished actors doing their best to do their historical analogs justice. The faults lay with the direction and tone of the film which certainly isn’t enough to mar the film. Yet considering how safe it ultimately ends up feeling, I doubt the film is doing the legacy of the Khama’s any favors.

Final Grade: C+