The Woman King | Little White Lies

The Woman King

07 Oct 2022 / Released: 07 Oct 2022

Two people wearing traditional African clothing, a woman in a brown patterned top and a man in a blue patterned robe, sitting together.
Two people wearing traditional African clothing, a woman in a brown patterned top and a man in a blue patterned robe, sitting together.
4

Anticipation.

We love Viola Davis and director Gina Prince-Bythewood

5

Enjoyment.

So much fun – eyes wide and glued to the screen the entire time.

5

In Retrospect.

A great time at the movies. A rare cinematic event.

Gina Prince-Bythe­wood deliv­ers her mas­ter­piece in this qui­et­ly rad­i­cal action epic with a stun­ning lead turn from Vio­la Davis.

With The Woman King, direc­tor Gina Prince-Bythe­wood mas­ter­ful­ly helms the epic woman led action film she has been build­ing toward over her 20-year career. It focus­es on an all-woman war­rior unit called the Ago­jie, tasked with defend­ing the King­dom of Dahomey (mod­ern day Benin) in 1823, dur­ing a piv­otal moment in the coun­tries rela­tion­ship with the slave trade.

The Ago­jie are led by army gen­er­al Nanis­ca, played by a bat­tle weary and (dare we say it?) career-best Vio­la Davis. The ensem­ble includes: Thu­so Mbedu as the ram­bunc­tious rook­ie Nawi, who catch­es Nanisca’s eye after being aban­doned by her father for refus­ing to mar­ry an abu­sive man twice her age; the fierce­ly impres­sive Lashana Lynch who, in her meati­est role yet as Izo­gie, is tasked with train­ing the recruits, pro­vid­ing com­ic relief and kick­ing ass; and Sheila Atim as Nanisca’s right hand woman and sole con­fi­dant, Amenza.

Of course, there is also John Boye­ga as the state­ly, robe-swish­ing King, a role befit­ting his nat­ur­al regal­i­ty, charm and good humour – it’s from Boye­ga that we get the bulk of expo­si­tion, while it’s the actress­es who are out kick­ing ass.

No doubt the gru­elling work­out sched­ule played a role in get­ting these actress­es to deliv­er such raw per­for­mances. In recent years, Davis has per­haps teetered into Streep ter­ri­to­ry with her choice of roles, where we might spend every minute she’s on screen wait­ing for her to do The Thing, wait­ing for the moment she reach­es a 10 and mono­logues her­self into awards conversations.

As enjoy­able as that is, her per­for­mance here is one that is so raw it’s as if she her­self has been turned inside out. Instead of wait­ing for that moment she bub­bles over, we are drawn deep­er into the sim­mer. It’s a moment when Nanisca’s mem­o­ries betray her that offer up the film’s most poignant moment.

Mbedu, who is radi­ant with curios­i­ty and defi­ance in equal mea­sure, match­es Davis in their scenes togeth­er, and it is the rela­tion­ship between these char­ac­ters that gives dri­ve to some of the knot­ti­er plot points. The typ­i­cal­ly Hol­ly­wood dynam­ic of the rook­ie and the pro is refreshed, explored here through the dis­tinct trau­mas of aban­don­ment and captivity.

This film has already been com­pared to Brave­heart, Glad­i­a­tor and even Top Gun in terms of scale and the call back to spec­tac­u­lar Hol­ly­wood action epics of yore that offer a deep sense of char­ac­ter and out­stand­ing lead per­for­mances. While this is true – and accu­rate short­hand for the exact kind of crowd pleas­er this film is – it leaves lit­tle room to reflect on just how this is the cul­mi­na­tion of decades of work by Prince-Bythe­wood, as well as leav­ing space to crit­i­cise just how late Hol­ly­wood is (once again) to cen­tring the sto­ries of Black women.

Beyond Prince-Bythewood’s first mega action epic, The Old Guard, her 2008 film The Secret Life of Bees is a clear indi­ca­tor of the kind of sto­ries she has been insa­tiably try­ing to tell. Sto­ries of Black women exist­ing in a safe, pro­tect­ed space with one anoth­er, buoyed by one anoth­er and prepar­ing one anoth­er for the tur­moil of the out­side world.

To learn about the exis­tence of The Woman King – a Hol­ly­wood film about an all female army who even­tu­al­ly come to take down slavers – might inspire some scep­ti­cism. The machi­na­tions of Hol­ly­wood do not allow for the bru­tal truth about the slave trade to be told, as the bru­tal truth is not one that many want to see let alone accept.

It’s here where many Black film­mak­ers find them­selves in a bind. There is a feel­ing of scarci­ty when it comes to Black sto­ry­telling, that any­thing his­tor­i­cal means there is no space for cre­ative licence, that any­thing not beam­ing with pos­i­tiv­i­ty is a detri­ment to the entire com­mu­ni­ty, because What if this is our only chance?’ It is an unbear­ably heavy cross to bear.

The Woman King is unafraid to sprawl out and dig in as it explore his­to­ries untold, while deli­cious action sequences of near-exclu­sive­ly hand-to-hand com­bat unfurl in front of us. It is a cel­e­bra­tion of a film­mak­er and a cast at the peak of their pow­ers. And while in tone and style it’s per­haps impos­si­ble to not rem­i­nisce of an ear­li­er type of Hol­ly­wood spec­ta­cle, The Woman King is indis­putably the first of its kind.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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