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03/08/2017 11:01 PMRated PG-13
True love can become a mighty force when fighting for personal and political change in the face of tough obstacles. What makes A United Kingdom so absorbing, based on the lives of Seretse Khama of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), Africa, and Ruth Williams of England, is the interracial couple’s resolve to stay together when both their countries and families are determined to derail their relationship. In 1947, Bechuanaland was a protectorate of the United Kingdom, so the British influenced the affairs of the country and Seretse, its heir to the throne.
David Oyelowo, known for his resonating performances as Martin Luther King, Jr., in Selma and work in Lee Daniels’s The Butler, again rises to a challenge. Perfectly inhabiting the articulate, regal, yet vulnerable and loving Seretse, whose marriage dismantled hundreds of years of tradition, but also helped to forge Bechuanaland’s emergence into the independent Botswana, the British-born actor embraces the man and his culture. His layered performance is not unlike his own background, having studied in London and lived in Nigeria where he learned of his own royal lineage.
Seretse’s wife, the delicate, but internally resolute Ruth Williams, is played by a rock-solid Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl, Jack Reacher), who proves her versatility and depth as the woman who defies her family and the times to marry with her heart and make her new home in Africa.
Seretse and Ruth dance together in London’s jazz clubs in a kind of courtship rite, and the vibrant British director, Amma Asante (Belle, A Way of Life), chooses not to show their first dance, but to wait until later. Such a subtle gesture sets the tone for the believable steps in their solid union. In Bechuanaland, when Ruth gives birth to daughter, Jacqueline, she lies in bed watching some women sitting near her, breast-feeding their babies. She quietly sits down with them, becoming a part of their group, and they smile gently, welcoming her. Their acceptance is paramount to understanding the generosity of many Africans, a quality not displayed in the British diplomats portrayed.
Asante never allows A United Kingdom to slip into sentimentality or melodrama. The couple fought long and hard—Khama was exiled from his homeland when Ruth gave birth—and their victories are celebrated with tempered joy. Seretse’s feud with his hard-liner uncle, Tshekedi—played by the skillful, relatively unknown actor, Vusi Kunene (Cry, the Beloved Country, Eye in the Sky)—disrupts his ability to lead his people and protect his country from losing its rights to mineral and diamond resources. (Asante also lets the vast landscapes speak for their own value.) Khama never gives up and Ruth is not influenced by the colonialist women. Sidelight: Lady Lilly Canning, wife of Alistair Canning (Jack Davenport: Kingsman: The Secret Service, Pirates of the Caribbean series), a British thorn in Khama’s side, is played by Oyelowo’s wife, Jessica (Captive, Alice in Wonderland). As the strident Lady Lilly she shapes a portrait of some expatriate attitudes.
Near the beginning of the film, Seretse boxes an opponent in London, where he is studying. After losing the match, he says, “That was not a fair fight,” foreshadowing the battles he has ahead of him.
A United Kingdom resounds as the impassioned, steady resistance to the tide of apartheid, and the power of two people to unify by example and steadfast love. Seretse’s son, Ian, now the president of Botswana, continues the determination and perseverance his parents passed forward.
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