BLACK KING TAKES WHITE QUEEN — CHECKMATE
True tale of royal romance highlights racial divide and focuses on politics
Royal romances have always had a way of capturing the public imagination, be it Edward VIII’s abdication to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson or Prince Harry’s Toronto-based girlfriend Meghan Markle. And as those couples show, the greater the class disparity, the more the public eats it up.
But the marriage of Ruth Williams and Seretse Khama was both a head-turner and a head-scratcher to the people of 1947 Britain. One of them was black, a colonial subject from the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana). One was a crown prince.
Those two descriptions are of the same person, however. Seretse, played by David Oyelowo, was in line to become the next king of Bechuanaland when he went to London to study law. There, in 1947, he met Ruth (Rosamund Pike) at a dance. She was an office clerk; also, white.
The furor that erupts when the two announce their intentions starts in Ruth’s living room (her father is livid) and spreads to the corridors of power in Britain, Bechuanaland and even South Africa, Bechuanaland’s southern neighbour, which was just getting rolling with Apartheid. A biracial royal family next door would be optics of the worst kind.
A United Kingdom was written by Guy Hibbert and directed by Amma Asante. The filmmakers handle the politics nicely, showing how racism, tribalism and colonialism were sparked on both sides, and give us Jack Davenport as a British diplomat who trots out phrases like “against the political climate” and “diplomatic necessity.” His doublespeak comes down to the fact Britain doesn’t want to antagonize South Africa and won’t condone the marriage.
Neither will Seretse’s family, led by his uncle (Vusi Kunene), who’s been running Bechuanaland while his nephew was getting an education. The old man warns that their people will never accept a white British queen. Others suspect her of marrying above her station.
Pike and Oyelowo have decent chemistry. At least, I’m going to assume they do, because the film soon decides it doesn’t have time for both romance and politics, and settles for politics. This probably makes sense, since Seretse and Ruth were kept apart for a time by the machinations of the British government. But it does push the love story into the background.
The film remains a compelling history lesson and a timely tale of true love conquering petty hate. But that’s a lot of worthy ground to cover in less than two hours: It feels like we’re getting the bulletpoint version.