{"id":51518,"date":"2017-02-11T19:57:13","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T19:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=51518"},"modified":"2017-02-11T19:57:13","modified_gmt":"2017-02-11T19:57:13","slug":"a-true-story-of-love-race-and-royalty-gets-crammed-into-a-united-kingdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=51518","title":{"rendered":"A True Story of Love, Race and Royalty Gets Crammed Into A United Kingdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

A True Story of Love, Race and Royalty Gets Crammed Into <\/strong><\/em>A United Kingdom<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LA Weekly<\/a>
\n2017-02-06<\/p>\n

April Wolfe<\/strong><\/a>, Lead Film Critic<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nCourtesy of Fox Searchlight<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

In director Amma Asante\u2019s<\/a> epic political romance A United Kingdom<\/em><\/a>, David Oyelowo<\/a> and Rosamund Pike<\/a> star as Seretse<\/a> and Ruth Khama<\/a>, the interracial royal couple who stunned the world when they fought to rule the country that would become the Republic of Botswana<\/a>.<\/strong> The story\u2019s a wildly interesting history lesson on African poverty, the rise of apartheid<\/a> in the late 1940s and Britain\u2019s<\/a> passive role in separating Botswana\u2019s blacks from whites. But here all that complexity plays more Disney<\/a> than drama, with a script from Guy Hibbert<\/a> (Eye in the Sky<\/em><\/a>) that turns love into a montage and politics into a trite cartoon of good vs. evil.<\/p>\n

The couple lindy-hops<\/a> through courtship and right into an engagement in the early scenes, which are set to an American jazz soundtrack. They first lock eyes at a dance in London<\/a>, where he\u2019s a law student and she\u2019s an office worker. In real life, the two met secretly for a year before Seretse even got the nerve to ask, \u201cDo you think you could love me?\u201d But the script ramming right through the early romance and into the marriage leaves so many open questions about the characters\u2019 love; as portrayed in the film, they barely know one another when Ruth decides she\u2019s going to move to Africa<\/a> to be Seretse’s queen.<\/p>\n

Against the wishes of their families \u2014 and the British and South African governments \u2014 Seretse and Ruth marry and travel to Bechuanaland <\/a>so that he can ascend the throne and use his education to help his people. Soon after their arrival comes one of the film\u2019s most poignant moments: Seretse\u2019s aunt Ella (Abena Ayivor<\/a>), who\u2019s the current queen, drills right into the thin white woman before her to ask if Ruth knows what it would mean to be a mother to the nation and its predominantly black citizens. Ella has a good point: At a time when white people are swarming into Bechuanaland to turn black citizens into servants, how good an idea is a white queen? Later, Ruth sits in her room, practicing British queen skills such as waving and smiling, while the tribe\u2019s women break their backs outside to get food to their families. But A United Kingdom<\/em> doesn\u2019t fully explore this cultural distance; the film\u2019s structure requires that Ruth be quickly accepted into the tribe, so the story can move on to Britain\u2019s treachery…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A True Story of Love, Race and Royalty Gets Crammed Into A United Kingdom LA Weekly 2017-02-06 April Wolfe, Lead Film Critic Courtesy of Fox Searchlight In director Amma Asante\u2019s epic political romance A United Kingdom, David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike star as Seretse and Ruth Khama, the interracial royal couple who stunned the world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,12,5,8,520,10],"tags":[15678,26205,25592,1397,25494,16657,25496,24979,7461],"class_list":["post-51518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-south-africa","category-uk","tag-amma-asante","tag-april-wolfe","tag-bechuanaland","tag-botswana","tag-david-oyelowo","tag-la-weekly","tag-rosamund-pike","tag-ruth-williams-khama","tag-seretse-khama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51519,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51518\/revisions\/51519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}