Small one becomes a Queen

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This article was published 01/10/2016 (3594 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In this family-friendly, true-life tale of a chess prodigy from a Ugandan shantytown, the feel-good Disney sports movie gets a boost from director Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, The Reluctant Fundamentalist), a filmmaker known for tackling tricky political topics.

Like 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire, this crowd-pleaser is bolstered by intelligent scripting, crafted direction and strong performances, making the uplift feel earned.

Phiona Mutesi (newcomer Madina Nalwanga) lives in the Kampala shantytown of Katwe, selling maize to help feed her brothers and support her widowed mother, Harriet (Lupita Nyong’o of 12 Years a Slave). Phiona can’t afford school, but when she starts hanging around the chess club run by Christian mission worker Robert Katende (Selma’s David Oyelowo), he realizes her gift with the game might just change her life.

The underdog kid, a temporary setback, training sequences, the dedicated coach, the ultimate triumph — all the standard beats are here, along with occasional slips into outright cliché. But these familiar tropes are given richness and texture with a smart screenplay from William Wheeler (based on the ESPN Magazine article and book by Tim Crothers) and Nair’s passionate immersion in her location, which allows her to offer hope without minimizing Phiona’s hardships.

Queen of Katwe is about an extraordinary young woman, but it’s also about her everyday community, a place where even a small setback — an injury, an illness, bad weather — can become a dire threat. The Indian-born, American-based Nair digs herself in, giving us not the generalized, pitying depiction of African poverty that is often seen in big Hollywood movies, but a specific picture of this neighbourhood’s vibrancy.

Oyelowo and Nyong’o bring lots of marquee value — thank goodness the studio didn’t feel the need for a “white saviour” character to supposedly broaden the movie’s appeal — but they use their star power modestly. Oyelowo’s inspirational chess speech, which involves a funny story about a dog and a cat, is better than any halftime locker-room talk I’ve seen on screen.

Meanwhile, Nyong’o invests Harriet with both vulnerability and fierce strength. She is hopeful for her children, but also fearful, recognizing that Phiona’s glimpse of another world has caused her to become dissatisfied with her own and that she might end up stranded between the two, “like a ghost that cannot rest.”

With this kind of support, newcomer Nalwanga is able to shine. She imbues Phiona with watchful, serious self-possession, so when she does smile it’s like the sun coming out.

The filmmakers don’t get hung up on the nuances of individual matches — chess is difficult to dramatize on film — and instead use the game as a metaphor. When Phiona first comes to the club, she asks what the pieces do and is told by one small girl that “they kill each other.” Chess is a serious matter for these children, and they learn its tactics just as every day they must learn to plan and strategize — to help their families, to get enough to eat, to avoid being robbed while carrying home water.

As one of the young players points out, in chess, the pawn can become a queen: “The small one can become the big one.” It says a lot that Queen of Katwe’s filmmakers and cast take what could have been a trite inspirational message and make it feel so fresh and true.

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca