★★★★
(PG) 111 minutes
Africa and the feelgood movie don't sound like the most natural of partnerships but we have been given two fine examples this Christmas and, even more unlikely, they're both drawn from life.
![Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) and Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) in <i>A United Kingdom</i>.](/web/20170209180537im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/h/z/r/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gthxdu.png/1483323540821.jpg)
One is Queen of Katwe, Mira Nair's rousing success story about a young Ugandan chess champion. The other is this film from Amma Asante (Belle). It's an interracial love affair set in Bechuanaland in the 1940s before the country achieved independence as the Republic of Botswana. The lovers are Seretse Khama, the country's prince, and Ruth Williams, the woman he met and married in England in 1947 after studying at Oxford.
It begins in London in the dreary streets of post-war suburbia, where Gone Girl's Rosamund Pike, cast as Ruth, proves once more that wide eyes and porcelain skin don't necessarily signify fragility. She and Seretse (David Oyelowo) meet at a Missionary Society dance, bond over a mutual fondness for jazz and start to fall in love. It's only then that she learns he's a prince and that he has to return home to take up his position as king.
![The film begins in the dreary streets of post-war suburbia. Seretse Khama, (David Oyelowo) and Ruth Williams (Rosamund ...](/web/20170209180537im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/h/z/r/1/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gthxdu.png/1483323540821.jpg)
Politics soon intrude, looming up in the overbearing presence of Jack Davenport in the role of Britain's high commissioner in Africa. Bechuanaland is a British Protectorate – an arrangement forged by the country's fear of being swallowed up by neighbouring South Africa, which has just introduced apartheid. Britain's protective instincts, however, are being swiftly overtaken by its reluctance to risk its access to South Africa's gold and uranium by endorsing a mixed marriage.
All of this is neatly condensed into an old-fashioned tale about the importance of standing up to bullying, prejudice and pomposity. And despite a certain amount of caricature, it's done well. Asante shot most of it in Botswana, returning to the house where the Khamas lived in the early years of their marriage, and the dun-coloured stretches of open plain which surround it are in dazzling counterpoint to the London Ruth has left behind.
Oyelowo and Pike have great rapport – there's a strong strain of humour running through their best scenes together – but once the political manoeuvring gets under way, Eros is quickly upstaged by Machiavelli.
Neither side behaves well. Seretse's family takes against Ruth from the moment she arrives, although his sister, Naledi (Terry Pheto) later relents, becoming her staunchest ally. And in Britain, Attlee's Labour Party and Churchill's Conservatives strive to outdo one another in bastardry.
There are one or two fictional touches – a certain amount of streamlining has gone on and Jack Davenport's Sir Alistair Canning is a made-up character, although I imagine that he's been heavily influenced by reality. What matters is that he ends up on the losing side.