Pleasantly surprising tale
Review Mia and the White Lion (M, 98 mins) Directed by Gilles de Maistre Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★1⁄2
Acoming-of-age yarn, set in the verdant gorgeousness of a South African game reserve, featuring a young girl and the deep bond she shares with a rare white lion. Seriously, what’s not to like?
Actually, not much. If you can stifle your cynicism towards all movies that uncritically celebrate the animal kingdom as some sort of state of nature which human society could learn some valuable lessons from, in which the villain announces his arrival by practically twirling his moustache, and any modern-day movie – set in South Africa, especially – in which the only significant black character is, ahem, the children’s maid, then I guess Mia and The White Lion might be just about enough to ring the respective bells of you and your nippers during its vanishingly brief scheduled run.
And, to tell you the truth, I didn’t mind the film anything like as much as I might have. Director Gilles de Maistre has produced an unmistakable labour of love.
The film was years in the making, as it followed the actual growth of Charlie the lion from cub to near-full-grown adult. Daniah De Villiers, as Mia, ages from 10 to 14 or so on screen as the film unwinds. This is no digital wizardry or casting coup. De Maistre just took
his time to make the film, which is surely the greatest special effect of all.
As Mia and Charlie grow, the family around them – dad Langley Kirkwood (Dredd) and mum Melanie Laurent (The Beat My Heart Skipped) – are on their own journey of separation and reconciliation.
We sense early on that dad’s moral compass might not be the full quid, but it’s not until ‘‘friend’’ Dirk Auret hoves into view that we realise not all is as it seems at the family’s lion rescue business.
And from there, Mia and The White Lion moves into some more nettlesome territory, with a debate about the immorality of the revolting business of ‘‘canned hunts’’. That’s the repugnant practice of selling enclosed and usually sedated animals to businesses who cater for pathetic ‘‘hunters’’ to shoot and then head back home to the US and Europe with a photo of a slaughtered big cat at their feet and no awkward questions to answer about how they killed it.
The shifts in tone are occasionally jarring. And the content might get too intense and dark for the very youngest of your hapu¯ .
But, as a way of whiling away a few hours, basking in that scenery, not thinking too much about the plotting and appreciating the occasional moment of emotional rawness and honesty the screenplay conjures up, Mia and the White Lion ticks more boxes than not.