Review of He Named Me Malala (2015) by Filmphonic — 22 Nov 2015

Director Davis Guggenheim’s chronicle of the life, so far, of Nobel Prize-winning Pakistani teenage activist Malala Yousafzai, from being shot by the Taliban for suggesting girls should be educated to moving to Britain and becoming a global ambassador for children’s education and gender equality.

If you’ve watched television over the last 3 years surely you’ve heard of Malala Yousafzai and her extraordinary story, ‘He Named Me Malala’ is an account of the teenager’s brief but eventful life so far, crafted for full dramatic effect.

But the heart of this movie is the confluence between director Davis Guggenheim’s convictions about the power of education, as seen in his recent work, and those of Malala and her father. The result is a central ethos for which our heroine risked her life, which essentially makes ‘He Named Me Malala’ a piece of advocacy filmmaking which straddles the line of positive propaganda.

The film is a mix of interviews and “candid” footage with Malala’s family about her uniquely independent upbringing in Pakistan’s Swat valley, the ominous arrival of the Taliban and all the events that followed. This is mixed with a lot of hand drawn animation that illustrates some key events and Yousafzai philosophical musings, all of which help to give ‘He Named Me Malala’ a rather mythical quality, and whether intentionally or not, depict Malala in a position of near sainthood.

The problem with making a documentary about the life of a teenager, despite her extraordinary circumstances, is that when you get past the well-established events into the actual person, it’s just not that interesting. There are cursory heart-warming attempts at digging beneath the persona but to no real avail, and despite the trauma this is a normal girl whose character is not yet fully formed and without a lifetime of experiences to merit a 90 minute documentary portrait.

There’s also no attempt to dig into the mythological aspect of her now iconic status and what that says about society, indeed the near prophetic origins of her name and the liberal use of animation here only make it more pronounced.

So what we’re left with is what ‘He Named Me Malala’ is really about, not so much a rounded documentary but a promotional tool for Malala’s commendable global activism efforts. Which is great for, rather fittingly, educational and motivational purposes for youngsters, but unless you’re completely ignorant of her story, there’s not much else aside from a recent historical recap and a feel-good story.

The Bottom Line….

Although not a rounded or compelling documentary, ‘He Named Me Malala’ is an uplifting piece of advocacy filmmaking that’s fitting as an educational and motivational tool for a Malala Yousafzai inspired generation, cementing her as the patron saint of global education.