Review of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019) by Masada — 22 Oct 2019

Chiwetel Ejiofor's directorial debut and it's a strong start. Stuck in the fields, young William needs to find the courage to battle all the elements against him. Heavy rains followed by a dry season in a country which government does not provide enough for the lower classes of people, forcing him to work the fields so his family has enough to eat.

Being a bright young man and good with technology, he soon knows that he can find a solution for the drought and help his family. The battle between William's duties and ideas is well translated. Ejiofor is a strong player as his father, yet due to this performance it is him that kind of steals the screen.

It's not that the rest of the acting is bad, it's that one person stands above the rest, but it is unintentional. The photography is absolutely gorgeous and brands your eyes with the harsh thruth these people have to live with. Their goals are primal and the mistrust in technology to save them is warranted because having to build it takes away from the work needed to put in the field. The fact that they almost have to resort to praying for rain to survive is heartbraking enough.

In the end, it is a story about persevering in what you're good at and following an idea that can actually help and improve people's situations in a decor that we're not used to seeing in any other Hollywood movie. Props to Netflix and Ejiofor for picking up this story and putting it on the screen.