Winnie

"She spent nearly 500 days in prison, 400 of them alone in solitary. She was exiled, they harassed her, they nearly killed her. Her contribution to the struggle is beyond calculation." This movie follows the life of Winnie (Hudson) from birth to her life with husband Nelson Mandela (Howard) and beyond. It shows her transformation from shy student to activist. I hate to admit it but I knew next to nothing about this woman before I started the movie. For that reason going in my first thought was, why make a movie about her when Nelson is much more interesting. After watching this my thoughts changed to why don't they make more movies about her. I'm not sure how accurate this movie is but I found it to be very interesting and really made me feel for her. Seeing a woman who was shy and had her life ahead of her end up being broken by seeing the way her life was affected by her husbands sentence gives you conflicting emotions. On one hand you want her to do the things she is doing while at the same time you know she should stop. The end of the movie is so bittersweet that it's hard to feel happy about what happened. The only really bad thing I have to say about this is that it really had the feel of a Lifetime movie. Overall, my feelings went from why a movie about her to why aren't there more movies about her. I highly recommend this. I give it an A-.

I am presently watching this movie at the moment. I must say I am extremely surprised at the flawed costuming of this project. This is a movie chronicling the life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, a woman who was born in 1936. Yet from the very start of the movie(which starts at her birth), you notice immediately that they lost it on the costumes they used as they do not depict the kind and quality of clothing worn in a 1936 South African village. For one the clothing used are really really bright and very 2011 fashionable. Regarding the styling, you can clearly tell that they probably could not produce them that way back then. They also look too bright and flashy much like modern apparel. In certain scenes you see that the ties worn by the guards or police officers looking really modern day and therefore really makes you struggle to believe the events were actually occurring when the acting tells you they were. Talk about the wedding dress used in Winnie's wedding, it just looks out of place time-wise. So even though the acting is good, I feel that the strength of the acting was much suppressed by this flaw. It really would have been better if they had down toned the colors a bit but unfortunately they did not.

Winnie Mandela (Jennifer Hudson) is the sixth daughter to a disappointed father hoping for a son. She tries to prove her worth chaffing at the paternalistic culture. Her father is the son of the chief and a ground breaking teacher. She studies to be a social worker and excels. She is fascinated by Nelson Mandela (Terrence Howard) and catches his eye. They are soon married but they are always hounded by the cruel De Vries (Elias Koteas). Mary Botha (Wendy Crewson) hires her despite the troubles and becomes her supporter.

This is such a bland uninteresting biopic. With such an amazing complicated subject, this has no intensity. It has no life. The story has been simplified into a paint-by-number biopic. It's as if it's boiled down to highlights of a compelling life. It uses way too many montages. Terrence Howard is especially hamstrung by the script while Jennifer Hudson takes a backward step with her performance. Elias Koteas is a great actor but the movie appears to suggest that all of Mandela's problems stem from an over-zealous persecutor. Winnie is one of the most compelling characters in our modern history and this treats it all like a melodrama. I'm left a little uncertain about Hudson's skills after this. However I put most of it down to a bad script.

Great historical drama! When i first saw that Terrence Howard and Jennifer Hudson were playing the lead roles i was doubtful that they could pull off a creditable performance. Boy was i wrong! From what i know of the actual Mandela story, seeing how i have been following the real story since the apartheid protests began in the 60's, i would say that both Howard and Hudson channeled both Mandela and Winnie!! my only regret is the movie did not receive the acclaim that it deserved! I thought that Hudson did a great job in her acting debut in Dreamgirls. However, i thought that her performance in Winnie was far better! In Dreamgirls she(Hudson) was nominated for an academy award yet no mention for her excellent performance in Winnie!!

After watching movie Winnie Madikizela Mandela, I wondered how much Winnie, the main character, narrated on this movie about herself. Winnie was referred to as the Mother of the Nation, she was statues and beautiful, very intelligent and warrior spirited. Yet so much was left out about her diplomacy, about how she traveled around the world from country to country to gain world support for the release of her husband Nelson Mandela. The greatness of the woman was laminated to half her greatness in this movie. I remember when Winnie came to United States to meet to appeal the world be aware of apartheid and unjust imprisonment of many South Africans under apartheid. People were naming their children after Winnie and Nelson because of her image, which I must mention was distained. The population of South Africa including Nelson are under the influence of apartheid also Stokholm AND Helsinki syndromes.