A United Kingdom is a Mediocre Sappy Romantic Melodrama
Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom tells the true and inspirational story of Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) whom, after marrying an english, white woman (Rosamund Pike), is denied the rank of King of Bechuanaland. The film follows Seretse’s struggles as he is exiled from the Kingdom of Bechuanaland and tries to get back to her wife, who is alone with their daughter in South Africa.
A United Kingdom is a relatively easy film to review — because it follows the exact same structure as many oscar-bait romantic melodramas.
- A man and woman meet — in coincidental circumstances. They suddenly fall in love, but their love is forbidden due to either: a) The character’s race, religious beliefs and/or b) their parents/lineage or royal blood.
- They don’t care and get married — until they are chastized by their peers.
- The woman obviously becomes pregnant with a child, which becomes motivation for the man to accomplish whatever he must do.
- They win.
That’s exactly what happens in this 110-minute melodrama. Yes, I will say that the performances are excellent across the board from everyone involved, especially Jack Davenport who plays Sir Allistair Canning — the biggest dick of any movie that came out in 2017. Everytime he is on screen, you know shit’s about to go down, and the scenes of wordplay involving him and David Oyelowo are thrilling to watch. Speaking of Oyelowo, he delivers a fantastically emotional performance as Seretse Khama. There are many emotionally driven sequences that are based solely on Oyelowo’s monologues and they are all very good. Rosamund Pike is also very good, but her character is very one-dimensional — she does nothing but becomes a “stay-at-home” mom and waits for her Husband, while he fights for his freedom.
While the performances and some sequences in the movie are great, the film itself is a very repetitive and sappy letdown. The biggest disappointment of the movie is that we never see the romantic connection between Ruth (Pike) & Seretse — we know that the aformentioned sequence comes at the beginning, when they meet for the first time, but Asante cuts away from the romantic connection, and prefers two other repetitive sequences in which they go jazz dancing to make it up for it. Montages ensue and they fall in love, with zero character development whatsoever. A montage shows that they fall in love, and repetitive dialogue confirms it, but you never really feel it from the actors. Where Oyelowo & Pike shine brightest is when they’re apart from each other. When they’re together, the dialogue written by Guy Hibbert feels familiar, predictable and repetitive — what a Nicholas Sparks adaptation usually feels like. Out with the repetitive dialogue, the film follows a fairly predictable structure, even if it’s based on an inspirational story, you can’t help but feel that the film seems too familiar from movies that deal with racial inequalities and has a romantic theme to it.
Many scenes include the same dialogue but repeated in different ways [Mathieu Bock-Côté]: “You must divorce her”. “You cannot marry this girl”. “I call for a divorce.” “You are exiled for life”. “You will never be able to return to Bechuanaland”. “I love my wife!” “You are my heart” and others. The repetitiveness of the film makes A United Kingdom a sappy slog that does have terrific performances and an inspirational story, but there are many inspirational stories that don’t need to be adapted into film, due to the fact that they resemble too much like other inspirational stories. It’s better if you read the Wikipedia page regarding Seretse & Ruth and how Mr. Khama became the first ever President of Botswana after returning from Bechuanaland. Do that instead of wasting 110 minutes of your life you’ll never get back.
✯✯
