Some predictable moves
Queen of Katwe has spirit, but gets mired in metaphor
No film likes an extended metaphor better than an inspirational sports drama, and nothing quite inspires like an extended metaphor for life.
Sports! Those rousing bouts of conflict and drama! The player on the field, on the pitch, on the astroturf, seizing every advantage, besting every foe, marshalling every iota of strength and resolve in a glorious pageant of determination, of will, of might. Isn’t that exemplar of vigour and courage sort of like us all, in our own humble ways, summoning great reserves of force and perseverance in the arena, the stadium, of life?
Chess may not be a sport, strictly speaking, but it does the job well enough in Queen of Katwe, an inspirational sports drama in the classic mould — and one based on a true story, to boot.
We’ve got the heroic underdog, Phiona (Madina Nalwanga), a young girl from the slums of Kampala, Uganda, who proves an unlikely chess prodigy and strives toward the stratosphere of international renown. We’ve got the dogged coach, Robert (David Oyelowo), who cultivates the budding genius of his pupil with the tenacity of a true believer. And we’ve got the requisite against-allodds
milieu, in this case impoverished Katwe, without which poor Phiona’s indefatigable ascent could hardly be expected to rouse.
She soars from local friendlies to private-school competitions to matches with the upper crust abroad, astonishing everyone, herself included, along the way. Though what she’s actually playing is beside the point. It’s not about the chess, you see, not really. It’s about spirit, bravery, hope — all those things we need for life itself.
Queen of Katwe is directed by Mira Nair, who has made very fine, nuanced, and yet perfectly accessible films before, among them
Monsoon Wedding and the Jhumpa Lahiri adaptation The Namesake. Here she’s been subsumed almost totally by the Walt Disney brand — and by the screenplay, by white Hollywood TV writer William Wheeler, which takes the extended metaphors of the inspirational sports drama to extremes.
“In chess,” a fellow player instructs Phiona early in the film, “sometimes the small one can become the big one.” Meaning that one whisks a pawn to the other end of the board to trade out for a queen — but also, obviously, that small Phiona may herself become chess royalty. Wheeler doesn’t stop there: Nearly every one of Phiona’s chess victories, from early coups to startling conquests to triumphs at country-wide games, is won by this very move — an upgrade from pawn to queen that clinches checkmate at once. Phiona has become the big one, dear viewer. She is the Queen of Katwe.
There isn’t a fine point of chess play or strategy that can’t be reiterated as a lesson about life. And I don’t simply mean certain parallels are drawn between what it takes to become a world grandmaster and what it takes to survive the destitution of the Ugandan slums. I mean that whenever a character expounds upon the chessboard in any way, they can’t help but articulate the relevant connection, and in the most ludicrously explicit terms.
“Chess teaches us to make a plan,” Robert helpfully explains to his charges, before advising them that on the board, as in the dangerous Katwe streets, they must use their minds to find safety from peril.
And when you lose a game? Don’t lose hope! “What matters,” Robert says, “is when you reset the pieces and play again.” Naturally. “To find where you belong sometimes you must make your move” is the Disney-approved, no-doubt-focustested tagline that bubbles up in block letters during the trailer.
It wouldn’t have been out of place as a line of real dialogue. That’s how groan-inducingly broad this stuff is.