Here’s a quick trip from coast to coast and back again! With Disney’s “Queen of Katwe” set to open nationwide in theaters on September 30 th, advanced screenings and premiers (and the parties and activities that accompany them) have been popping up across the nation. That’s how a chess player might describe this unlikely story of a young girl from the slums of Kampala, Uganda who stumbles upon an opportunity.
#QUEEN OF KATWE 2016 MOVIE#
Jay Stallings captured the chess world’s excitement as the movie opened around the country.īonus: To learn more about Phiona today, check out her visit to the Girls Club in February 2021: Ī real Queen’s Gambit! A Smothered Mate! An endgame technique to create a passer (I’ll let you be surprised)! AND, an inspiring story line with top-notch acting, expert cinematography, and plenty of laughs (and a few tears). Today’s throwback revisits the premier of Queen of Katwe, the story of Phiona Mutesi, a young girl whose chess prowess took her from poverty in Kampala, Uganda, to opportunities around the world.
Look for throwback articles throughout December.ĭecember Throwback #4: Long before Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit” riveted pandemic-weary viewers, strong female chess players were putting the world on notice. But I regretted my decision halfway through the flight.CLO is combing through its archives to bring readers blasts from the past this holiday season. Sometimes, you have to work and earn a living. No, I did not watch Queen of Katwe a third time on my flight home. In fact, I watched the film all over again and this time really let loose. So I didn’t get to watch the climax and aforementioned closing title sequence until I got to my hotel room and found the film on iTunes, sparing him the hysterical, sobbing puddle I happily became at movie’s end. Our plane landed twenty minutes before the end of Queen of Katwe. The man sitting next to me on my flight lucked out. It can’t possibly be the result of performance, which only makes the appearance of the actual people who inspired this movie, standing alongside and hugging their onscreen counterparts, generate a flood of emotions you don’t normally experience while watching film credits. At times, you forget this isn’t cinema verité. Nair’s most impressive gift, however, is her enviable eye for creating cinematic landscapes that vibrate with documentary-like clarity. Queen of Katwe is yet another color-drenched gem directed by the respected but underrated Mira Nair, who has highlighted in her previous films, M onsoon Wedding, The Namesake and Salaam Bombay! the majesty to be found in small gestures, the dignity that makes the most meager chore bearable, and the necessity of unshakeable belief. And finally, when Phiona ultimately embraces the nurturing and knowledge her teacher has selflessly offered her (though it’s obviously impossible to resist David Oyelowo, who is rapidly achieving Sidney Poitier saint-like stature as Goodness made mortal), and heads for both her destiny and a way out of poverty, your seatbelt is all that may keep you from standing up, cheering with the rapture of the recently baptized acolyte.
Then, as Phiona’s mother, played by a radiantly defiant Lupita Nyong’o, recognizing and accepting her daughter’s potential, allows herself the luxury of hope, it will get increasingly hard to suppress the urge to sniff and sob. So consuming and fraught with consequence is the tale of Phiona Mutesi, an impoverished Ugandan girl’s prejudicially judged, class and scholastically challenged-and initially parentally road-blocked journey to chess grand master status-you are in grave danger of becoming the person you dread sitting next to on a flight.īecause as you follow the luminous Madina Malwanga’s portrayal of Phiona learning to handle both skill and setback, be prepared to release several involuntary gasps and the occasional pinched wince. Be careful not to mistake the pounding of your heart into your headphones for turbulence. Warning to anyone choosing to watch this movie on a flight as I did: Forget your meal, or disconnecting to go to the bathroom.