A United Kingdom Reviews

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Rosamund Pike, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, it turned out to be an interesting story but, beside being a solid history lesson, to be honest, it never really managed to engage me emotionally. For example, even though Ruth Williams did seem to have the best intentions and she did seem to really love her husband, it didn’t help that she spent much of the duration being cloistered in her house, waiting that everything go sorted out without much input from her. For her husband, it was not really much better, I’m afraid. Indeed, even though the guy gave a couple of rousing speeches, he didn’t seem to have so much power after all since Botswana, at the time called ‘Bechuanaland’, was actually a British Protectorate which means the country was protected but also controlled by the British government. And, yet, somehow, he managed to get the independence for his country and he managed to turn it into a Democracy which was quite remarkable. Without mentioning the fact that, through his impulse, Botswana went from being one of the poorest countries in the world to become one of the top 4 richest African countries. Another interesting fact was how much influence South Africa still had at the time, in spite the fact that their Apartheid politic was supposedly considered as ‘outrageous’ by all the Western countries. As you may have noticed, I didn’t even mention yet the fact that Seretse Khama did marry a white British woman when pretty much everyone, in Great Britain and in his own country, were against it. Indeed, while this marriage was the main focus of this movie, I’m not sure if it was really the most interesting thing this man actually achieved. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still an interesting historical drama and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.