Mia and the White Lion is naturally powerful
Family-friendly nature films used to be plentiful, but with the passing years they’ve gone on the cinema endangered species list. That’s why it is such a treat when a representative of the genre is spotted and is so strong that it brings honour to the format. The rare sighting is “Mia and the White Lion,” a production that not only deeply embraces the nature elements, but it also manages to be a moving story about family, trust, love and conservation.
All this unfolds on a dust-swept lion farm in Africa, where John Owen (Langley Kirkwood) has moved his family after years in London. The move has not set well with 10-year-old
Mia (Daniah De Villiers) who misses life and her friends in the city. She’s living a loner existence in Africa until a rare white lion cub comes to the farm. Mia and the lion begin to form a bond that grows with each passing year.
The relationship could have been enough to keep Mia happy, except she discovers a secret that her father has been hiding for years. When the secret threatens the life of the lion, Mia goes on a quest to make sure he remains safe. The film becomes an incredible journey across the Africa landscape and a trek of emotional growth for Mia.
A huge reason the film works is director Gilles de Maistre (“Ferocious”) did not rush the process. The movie was shot over five years, which allowed both the white lion and De Villiers to age so there is no weird effort to show Mia as a 10-year-old and as a teenager. Trying to make an actor at that age look older or younger is usually only accomplished with two actors who look similar. Being able to show De Villiers over the years gives the film the kind of honest structure feel usually reserved for documentaries.
De Villiers answers the challenge at all ages. The young actor shows just the right amount of anger as a 10-year-old to represent the pain and frustration of being ripped out of a safe environment and dropped in a world not of her choosing.
The trade-off of having a strong young star is the adults don’t get a lot of opportunities to show their range. Melanie Laurent (“Inglourious Basterds”) manages to use her limited moments to the maximum, going from caring mother to distraught parent. It helps that Laurent is heavily engaged in a secondary storyline dealing with Mia’s brother, who is struggling with some deep emotional problems. Like De Villiers, Laurent never overplays a scene. That’s vital because in a story of this nature, the line between powerful drama and cheesy melodrama is relatively thin.
As with so many nature films over the years, “Mia and the White Lion” has a political agenda. That’s not a problem when it can be included in such a way without sliding into the disruptive nature of preaching. The film’s vivid portrayal of the practice of lions (and other animals) being raised in captivity for the sole purpose of being the target for pampered tourists who want to claim a big game hunt kill through a controlled kill is painfully powerful.
The important message of the film should be a reminder that while we can be enthralled by an endless stream of videos featuring a cat playing a piano, the real images of a feline that should move those millions of viewers is a movie like “Mia and the White Lion.”