A kingdom united by love
A United Kingdom (M, 111 mins) Directed by Amma Asante
With his university legal education almost complete, Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) knows its time to return home.
Sent to Britain to learn how to rule his country, the Prince of Bechuanaland (what’s now called Botswana) is now ready to assume his crown.
But there’s just one problem – he’s fallen in love.
London office worker Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) is certainly not what his currently ruling Uncle or tribe expected as the new mother of their nation.
Even more aggrieved are the British government, who accuse the couple of ‘‘flagrant disregard of the political climate’’.
Surrounding African nations have already expressed their displeasure at the prospect of an inter-racial couple at the apex of Bechuanaland and South Africa with its newly minted Apartheid policy (this is 1948) is threatening to make life difficult for the Brits in Africa if they don’t stop this outrage.
Some even think the marriage a sham. That as ‘‘soon as she knows there’s no Buckingham Palace, how long will it be before the dust gets in her eyes?’’
But those people have severely underestimated the power of the couple’s love, which will be strenuously tested over the ensuing months and years as governments and individuals try ever increasingly devious ways to keep them apart and Seretse from taking the throne.
Based on Susan Williams’ 2006 book Colour Bar, director Amma Asante (Belle) has done a terrific job of bringing these incredible and what now seem outrageous events to life. As Guy Hibbert’s (Eye in the Sky, Omagh) taut and still scarily topical script shows, this was not Britain or Winston Churchill’s finest hour.
The manifestation of these villains – Jack Davenport’s oily government mandarin Alistair Canning and Tom Felton’s obsequious minion Rufus Lancaster – may be a little too onedimensional, but they are certainly effective at evoking an audience reaction.
But while the political machinations intrigue, it’s the central love story that compels. That’s thanks largely to two magnificent performances from Pike (Gone Girl) and Oyelowo (Selma).
The pair’s chemistry is palpable, while their character’s individual strengths and weaknesses are apparent.
Pike does superbly well in evoking Ruth’s uncertainty and fear at being a stranger in a strange land, while Oyelowo greatly convinces in his portrayal of Seretse’s dual concerns of being the statesman and spokesman he believes his people need and the loving husband his wife deserves.
Elegant, intelligent, evocative and emotion-inducing cinema.
- James Croot