Four stars. Rated PG-13, and needlessly, for racial epithets and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.26.17
This film’s arrival couldn’t be
more timely.
We need it. Desperately. And
others like it.
 |
| Having met only recently, but nonetheless mutually smitten, Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) and Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) spend every free moment together ... despite the knowledge that responsibilities soon will force him to leave England. |
Director Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom is a sensitively
handled, deeply moving account of the turmoil that erupted in 1948, when
Seretse Khama, the new young king of the British protectorate of Bechuanaland
(now Botswana), had the ill-advised audacity to fall in love with — and marry —
Lloyd’s of London office clerk Ruth Williams.
It’s a helluva story. Their union
became a headline-making scandal in both his homeland and Britain, despite the
latter’s (somewhat) more tolerant attitude toward the color barrier. But broadmindedness
had nothing to do with the British government’s reaction, which was shaped
solely by nervous anxiety over South Africa’s decision, that same year, to
implement apartheid ... which, among many other cruel decrees, banned
interracial marriage.
South Africa viewed the existence
of just such an interracial couple, directly across its northern border, as a
provocative insult. Britain, deeply in debt following the war, desperately
needed to maintain the influx of cheap South African gold and uranium, and also
worried about the havoc and economic ruin that would result, should South
Africa choose to invade its smaller neighbor.
Guy Hibbert’s screenplay —
adapted from Susan Williams’ 2006 book, Colour
Bar — certainly doesn’t shy from the political and economic issues that
prompted such bad behavior by so many individuals in the British government, up
to and including Winston Churchill, when he began his second term as prime
minister in 1951. At the same time, the new young king faced equal censure from
his own people, already chafing under intrusive British “guidance,” and
therefore deeply resentful of this white female interloper who knew nothing of
their culture, history or deeply rooted national pride.
But Asante never allows such
controversy and international fallout to overwhelm the two people at the heart
of this saga, and that’s where this film gets its core strength. Stars David
Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike are both terrific, depicting their respective
characters with dignity, grace, intelligence and firm resolve. Rarely have two
people been forced to confront such harsh barriers to the peace and happiness
they shared, in each other’s company.
