Love triumphs over race, politics in ‘United’
From that on-the-nose title to its racial “Romeo and Juliet” storyline, Amma Asante’s “A United Kingdom” — a followup to her more exotic historical mystery-romance “Belle” — may sound a bit familiar. But it’s a unique, real-life story set from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s about the scandalous-at-the-time marriage of Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike), a white London legal clerk, former wartime ambulance driver and daughter of a man in the tea trade, to Prince Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo), the charismatic heir to the throne of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), a small African country.
The two jazz enthusiasts meet in opening scenes at a dance at a London missionary church. Seretse studies law in London. Ruth attends the dance with her charming younger sister Muriel (Laura Carmichael, “Downton Abbey”), who eventually becomes Ruth’s family defender in her controversial choice of husband. The marriage infuriates the racist apartheid government of South Africa, a crucial British ally, and the racist British authorities (not to mention the “yobs”).
The nuptials of the devoted Ruth and Seretse also incite a near rebellion in Seretse’s own Bamangwato tribe and country, which are under the control of Seretse’s traditionalist uncle Tshekedi Khama (Vusi Kunene), who serves as Bechuanaland’s regent and asks his disobedient nephew the prince to step down.
In an almost nostalgic depiction of upper-class British imperialist villainy, the apparently fictionalized diplomat Sir Alistair Canning (Jack Davenport, “Kingsman: The Secret Service”) and his Uriah Heep-ish henchman Rufus Lancaster (Tom Felton, Malfoy of the “Henry Potter” films) delight in sneering at Seretse and telling him what to do if he wants Britain to back him and keep his insignificant country from being annexed by land-greedy South Africa. At the same time, an American mining company secretly drills for minerals such as diamonds and copper in Bechuanaland.
“A United Kingdom” has much in common with the recent American civil rightsera romantic drama “Loving.” Both films conflate race, romance and genuine 20th century history and politics and will appeal to the same audiences.
Pike, who can appear aloof and chilly (just see her in “Gone Girl”), is lovely and warm as the “salesman’s daughter” who falls hard for the handsome, regal stranger from Africa. Oyelowo brings more than a little of his stately Martin Luther King Jr. from “Selma” to Seretse Khama, and it is all to the good.
The screenplay by Guy Hibbert is at times a bit clumsy and formulaic. But the film has emotional heft and a fine supporting cast, including Terry Pheto (“Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”) as Seretse’s at first disapproving sister, as well as pictures of the real couple at the end. In these divisive times, viewers may find comfort and hope in “A United Kingdom.”
(“A United Kingdom” contains profanity, racist epithets and a sexually suggestive scene.)