Weekend Watch: The Woman King
All hail Viola Davis!
Image Credit: Sony
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Viola Davis is a powerful warrior. But then you knew that already, right? Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite
Viola Davis is her usual excellent self and here gets not only to blend commanding grit and vulnerable humanity but also swing a sword and fling a spear.
If that combination of words doesn’t make you want to see The Woman King right now, let me sweeten the deal: Lashana Lynch is also in it, playing a fellow warrior.
Still not enough? Tough crowd. Fine – let me go full film critic, then.
Gina Prince-Bythewood, who last made The Old Guard, which I wrote about here, is back with another female-fronted story of warriors, but this is filmmaking on a whole other level.
The Woman King has a script by Dana Stevens that draws from history. It’s the story of the Agojie, the all-female unit of warriors who protected the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s with skills and a fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen.
Davis is General Nanisca, the leader of the army, who is at a watershed moment. Even as she supervises the training of the next generation of recruits, she’s pushing the king (John Boyega, in a small but effective role) to reject the kingdom’s reliance on fuelling the slave trade through prisoners captured in conflict and focus on other goods to trade.
At the same time, she’s facing challenges from neighbouring tribes, who are intent on raiding Dahomey’s citizens for their own malicious ends and the seemingly never-ending trafficking of humans.
As you’d expect, Davis, is, of course, fantastic – gritty and focused, but not just a stone-cold warrior. She carries scars both physical and psychological and confides in her best friend Amenza (a superb Sheila Atim, getting to properly prove on film why she’s such an acclaimed actor on the stage).
And it isn’t simply Davis’ show – Thuso Mbedu, who impressed so much in The Underground Railroad – is our way into the story, playing Nawi. A headstrong, adopted young woman whose father has given up hope of pairing her with a husband and has handed her over to the king, becomes one of the new class of recruits and goes through the trials and tribulations that come with joining the Agojie.
Part of that story is Lynch’s Izogie, a tough-as-nails taskmaster and one of the main mentors for new arrivals. She doesn’t suffer fools, but she’ll also be found sipping whiskey. Her interactions with Mbedu are just as effective as Davis’ work, and there are no weak links in the cast as a whole.
The narrative falters very slightly when it attempts to crowbar in outsiders. Obviously, there needs to be a threat, and Jimmy Odukoya is suitably menacing and misogynistic as Oba Ade, who shares a dark past with Nanisca.
Others, though, don’t work quite as well – the arrival of Portuguese slavers makes for more of a Hollywood take on history than the layered and thoughtful scenes set in Dahomey. And a featherlight semi-romantic connection between Nawi and Jordan Bolger’s Malik (who was born to a Dahomey mother and a white father and grew up in privilege elsewhere) never quite convinces. You’ll find yourself wishing that the screen time for that subplot had been handed to other stories.
Still, those are minor issues and don’t ever detract from the quality of the film itself. This is all departments working at the top of their game – from Polly Morgan’s beautiful cinematography to the driving score by Terence Blanchard.
If it’s going to be seen as a film that will face challenges in finding an audience, why not take advantage of the relatively quiet movie release schedule and offer some support to a project that really deserves it?
The Woman King is in US cinemas now and will arrive in the UK on 7 October.