A United Kingdom

Review

Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) and Prince Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) face problems more complicated than those that usually attend a romance between a commoner and a royal in A United Kingdom.
Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) and Prince Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) face problems more complicated than those that usually attend a romance between a commoner and a royal in A United Kingdom.

A United Kingdom may be based on real people and situations, but it certainly plays like a fairy tale.

Maybe that's because the scenario would have been laughed out of the room in a pitch meeting. In 1947, an employee of the Lloyd's of London insurance company meets the man of her dreams at a dance. While she's smart enough to supervise typists and other clerks, many of Ruth Williams' (Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl) friends and family members worry that she's dangerously old to be single.

A United Kingdom

84 Cast: David Oyelowo, Rosamund Pike, Tom Felton, Jack Davenport, Laura Carmichael, Terry Pheto, Jessica Oyelowo, Vusi Kunene, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Arnold Oceng, Anastasia Hille, Charlotte Hope, Theo Landey

Director: Amma Asante

Rating: PG-13, for some language including racial epithets and a scene of sensuality

Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes

One would imagine that her parents would be elated that she's caught the eye of a handsome law student named Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo). He's suave, well-manned and is even (gasp!) a real live prince about to rule.

Unfortunately for the happy couple, he's ascending to the throne of Bechuanaland, which is now known as Botswana. Ruth's working class parents (Nicholas Lyndhurst, Anastasia Hille) disown her, and she loses her job simply because her groom is black.

Back in Bechuanaland, Seretse's subjects aren't that receptive to his new bride. His uncle Tshekedi Khama (Vusi Kunene) is furious his nephew has married a white woman who also happens to be a commoner, and many in the kingdom wonder if his time in London has distracted him from his forthcoming duties.

Seretse and Ruth continue to face a long series of clashes with their families and the British and Bechuanaland governments because the fairy tale ending finally kicks in. Director Amma Asante (Belle) and screenwriter Guy Hibbert (Eye in the Sky) make the romance convincing because they wisely avoid asking viewers to believe in fairies.

Asante makes the prejudice in post-World War II England seem suitably infuriating. The scorn that Seretse and Ruth encounter feels consistently real. While racism itself is bad enough, the British Crown is also inhibiting the lovers because the economy of the United Kingdom needs mineral wealth from South Africa, and the couple's union makes officials in Cape Town and Pretoria nervous. Having South Africa's apartheid system flouted by their northern neighbors (and their soon-to-be royal family) presents a serious threat. Essentially, the suits in London are more worried about minerals than justice or love.

Greed can make people accept even the most repellent of philosophies.

Casting two ideal actors for the leads certainly helps. Oyelowo, who channeled Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, is equally at home being an actual king. He projects dignity, intelligence and compassion in a manner that more appointed, anointed or elected officials should emulate. Oyelowo can make pleas for tolerance or justice sound stirring even if we've heard them before.

Similarly, Pike manages to hold her own against her leading man and projects the kind of resolve necessary to overcome prejudice wherever she sets foot. Pike was terrific as the steely minded title character in Gone Girl and is a former Bond girl (Die Another Day), so playing tough characters is a specialty for her.

It's not too surprising that the villains in A United Kingdom are obviously composite characters. Tom Felton may have graduated from Hogwarts a long time ago, but it's a shame that it's hard to see him playing anything but a self-absorbed colonialist stooge. He and Jack Davenport take turns being the more repellent of the heels in the movie, but embracing dubious and pernicious ideologies can't help but turn a person into caricature.

MovieStyle on 03/10/2017

Upcoming Events