Review of Queen of Katwe (2016) by Ben L — 02 May 2017

One of the natural shortcomings of Queen of Katwe is that it is not a surprising film in any way. If you know that it is the story of a young girl from a small village in Africa who discovers she has a talent for the game of chess, then the rest of the movie almost writes itself. They tried to fit in some B-story content with the struggles the rest of her family is going through while she is excelling at chess, but I didn?t feel like most of that stuff was strong enough to add emotional depth to the main plot. Also the things in the village felt so out-of-context with the chess journey, that they didn?t need to be there, and seemed shoehorned in just to take full advantage of having Lupita Nyong?o in a prominent role. None of this content was bad or frustrating, I?m happy to have it as background so we know more about our main character?s history, but it feels like it could have been done better.

The young actress, Madina Nalwanga, was not bad in the lead role but there was something missing in either her performance or the script. It seemed that they were trying to make the character of Phiona strong and almost aggressive to match her style of play on the chessboard, but she played most of her scenes with a quiet shyness that didn?t line up with that. The real shining gem of this film was David Oyelowo. His portrayal of Coach Katende was so engaging that I genuinely felt the movie should have focused on his journey instead. It would have worked better to have this guy who is struggling to make ends meet, but he continues running a chess club because he?s so passionate about it, then he meets this young girl who is an enigma, who doesn?t talk much and comes from the middle of nowhere, but she?s better than anyone he?s ever seen...You can figure out the rest.

The advantage of chess is that it is almost tailor-made for creating analogies to real life. I thought they used this technique effectively several times, as things the coach teaches or things experienced in the game were designed to correlate directly to the real life events they are going through. Sadly, the actual scenes of chess were kind of hit-and-miss for me. Sometimes they worked, I felt the tension, and I sensed what was going on. But other times it all played out too fast, and it was difficult to track how the players felt about what was going on, and therefore it was hard to know if I should be excited or scared. Also the setup of the tournament wasn?t done well. They establish through dialogue that she has to win a certain percentage of games, but we always see her play only one, as if that?s all that matters.

The visuals were captured beautifully, and there were some moments that popped with color. Both the village and the schools that hosted tournaments felt authentic, as if they actually shot on location. I know that it might sound like I have been very critical of several aspects of this film, but most of that is because I sensed a greater potential than they executed. I?m all for these underdog, or diamond-in-the-rough stories. It warms my heart, and when it?s based on a true story, it gives me hope for humanity. Queen of Katwe is not a bad film, and it had one of the best methods of showing the ?where are they now? segment that comes at the end of many movies based on a true story. I just felt there were some flaws in execution that kept it from reaching the heights of a film like Searching for Bobby Fischer which tackled the same topic but was more effective in my opinion.