A United Kingdom

The English film A United Kingdom (2016) was directed by Amma Asante. It's an interesting love story, based on real events. David Oyelowo plays Prince Seretse Khama, a young African man studying law in London. Rosamund Pike plays Ruth Williams, an intelligent, fun-loving civil servant. They fall in love, and we know that their marriage will be a difficult one, because of prejudice both in England and in Africa.

What we don't know is that their marriage has implications far beyond each of them. In 1947, South Africa was gearing up for its apartheid program. Bechuanaland was a British protectorate, and Seretse Khama was its rightful prince. However, South Africa borders Bechuanaland, and the South African government refused to tolerate a mixed race couple in a neighboring protectorate.

That meant that not only did Seretse and Ruth face prejudice from the people around them, but they were pawns in an international standoff in which Great Britain was willing to sacrifice them to appease South Africa. What happened next became the plot of the movie.

David Oyelowo is a superb actor. So is Rosamund Pike. Ms. Pike has 42 movie credits, but I believe the only other film in which I saw her was Pride and Prejudice (2005), in which she portrayed Jane Bennet. I reviewed that movie for IMDb, and wrote that her performance was "luminous."

Director Asante is skillful, and the acting and cinematography are wonderful. We saw the movie at the excellent Little Theatre in Rochester, NY. It won't work quite as well on the small screen, because the film has some breathtaking scenes of the African desert.

For some reason A United Kingdom has a dismal IMDb rating of 6.7. I don't understand this--it's much better than that. Find it and judge for yourself.

This is one of those movies that is flying under the radar and deserves to be seen. It is a wonderful story, well scripted, well acted, and has terrific cinematography. The fact that is a true story makes one wonder what the hell we have been learning in school when we have never been taught this type of history. I give this a ten and really it deserves it. It is a shame people have degraded the rating for some reason other than the fact that this is good cinema. It is a very deserving movie and is like the movie Hidden Figures or Queen Katwe, it is important for history. I am a white conservative and think everyone should see the movie.

A United Kingdom is a true and gripping tale which handles it true historical source material with aplomb. With fantastic performances from Oyelowo and especially Pike, the central characters plight is beautifully illustrated. It's not perfect; some of the writing is a little clunky, but the character chemistry is there, and you leave the movie theatre feeling like a part of the story.

Quite how this movie receives the rating it does is completely beyond me. I can only imagine that half the voters didn't in fact see the movie.

I lived in Botswana for twenty-five odd years and enjoyed every single moment of it, almost certainly due in large measure to Seretse's enlightened politics and the genuine and natural warmth of the Botswana people. I knew both main characters quite well. Seretse was a very approachable man, even as president, and it was a pleasure to spend some time in his company. He was a man well loved by everyone, black and white. In fact, in Botswana one scarcely thought in those terms. As a politician he had huge charisma and was a great orator. He was also a born leader. I remember well being told by insiders that government Ministers who were in trouble for minor abuse of office or the like, would tremble in fear outside his office when they were to be 'carpeted'.

Ruth was an extraordinarily capable woman and even in her later years had more stamina than almost anyone I have known. She was at work in her office in Gaborone from early morning to the end of the day, patron of the Red Cross, Botswana Council of Women etc etc. Contrary, however, to one reviewer's criticism, Rosalind Pike's portrayal was quite accurate. She was not a strident campaigner but a very effective mover who enjoyed a social life and had many friends. In her widowhood she received constant visits from senior members of the tribe and government and was widely loved and respected by her people. She was most certainly "Mohumagadi" - Mother of the Nation.

This film portrays their personalities pretty accurately and the characterisation of the actors is extraordinarily true to life. Both David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike were absolutely convincing. The quality of the acting very quickly overcame my initial niggling concern that the physical likenesses were not quite there. The photography of Botswana was outstanding and the familiar views of Serowe from the Palapye 'road' and the scenes in the kgotla were quite emotional for me; I unexpectedly found I had a lump in my throat.

I can understand that, for others, the film may not have the immediacy it has for me, perhaps, but previous criticisms of 'cold' and 'unemotional' - No! Leaving aside my personal interest, it deserved to be the opener for the London Film Festival. Maybe not a total "blockbuster" but an unusual and great film nonetheless. Very close to fact.

"A United Kingdom" is based on the true-life relationship between Sir Seretse Khama, an African chieftain from what was then the Bechuanaland Protectorate, and a white British woman, Ruth Williams. The film implies that he was the King of Bechuanaland, but in fact no single individual ever held this position; Khama was the ruler of the Bangwatho, one of a number of tribes making up the Tswana nation, the largest ethnic group in the country. In Botswana, as Bechuanaland is now known, Khama and Ruth are today revered figures, as he was the leader of the country's independence movement and its first President when independence was achieved in 1966; unlike most other former colonies in Africa Botswana has remained a democracy ever since, and their son is the current President.

Khama's marriage to Ruth Williams (they met while he was studying in London in 1948) was highly controversial at the time. Many of Khama's own people, led by his uncle, refused to accept Ruth as their Queen. The South African government, which was just starting to introduce its policy of apartheid, objected furiously to the idea of a high-profile black leader in a neighbouring country marrying a white woman. Clement Attlee's Labour government, anxious to placate the South Africans who were threatening to leave the Commonwealth, intervened, exiling Khama from Bechuanaland and forbidding him to return. Winston Churchill, at the time leader of the Opposition, initially made sympathetic noises, but after the Conservatives were returned to power in 1951 he took an even harder line than Attlee. The situation was complicated by the discovery of diamonds in the territory; the British government, using the rift between Khama and his uncle as a pretext, threatened to revoke Bechuanaland's status as a Protectorate and declare it a Crown Colony. (The real reason was that in a Protectorate mineral rights belonged to the local people, whereas in a colony they belonged to the colonial power). One of Khama's few British allies was the Labour MP Tony Benn.

The action switches between an austere, drab post-war Britain and a bright sunlit Africa. The recreation of historical detail is well done and both the leading actors, David Oyelowo as Khama and Rosamund Pike as Ruth, are excellent. The film is an interesting look at a historical romance which made the headlines at the time but which today is largely forgotten, at least in Britain. 7/10

Some goofs. We hear a radio broadcast on the eve of Indian independence in 1947 telling us that Indians would go to bed "subjects of the Queen". Britain still had a King, George VI, in 1947. We are told that Queen Victoria made Bechuanaland a Protectorate to protect its people from "racist South Africa", but the Protectorate was created in 1885, twenty-five years before South Africa came into existence as a single nation. (In 1885 it was still a patchwork of British colonies and Boer republics). Prime Minister Attlee claims that the Presidents of South Africa, South-West Africa and the two Rhodesias were all opposed to Khama's marriage to Ruth. During Attlee's term of office (1945-51) none of these territories had a President.